It is 11 months today since we left SA on a beautiful hot sunny day last December. How this year has flown! Although we haven’t been in the Netherlands for a full year quite, it is a good time to share some of our experiences of living in a European country. This will be the first in a series of blogs on life in the Netherlands!
As the title may suggest, today we will be talking about water. Rotterdam is the largest and busiest port in Europe and the fourth busiest in the world. But that is not the water I want to discuss. Today we will broach the subject of the very average Northern Hemisphere weather we are now subjected to and then never talk about it again!
So we arrived in the UK at the beginning of January and in the middle of winter. I remember thinking that it is absolutely freezing but then we discovered what freezing was when we went to Berlin and Prague! But we managed in the cold and still did a lot of exploring & had a great time. By the time we got to Spain and Portugal it was warming up nicely and there was promise of a good Summer on the way. We even had an amazing sunny mildly warm week in Paris, it was amazing for early Spring! But when we arrived in Rotterdam at the end of March it was like being back in Italy! Paris, only 500 km away, was a pleasant 20ºC but the Netherlands was still only about 12ºC. We were disappointed but still full of hope for a good Summer.
Time went on and still the weather didn’t really improve; lots of cloud, rain and wind. Typical Cape Town Winter stuff. It was mid-June when someone told us to hang in there, June is often iffy but wait for July and August. But July and August came and went and still there was no real Summer weather. It did warm up a little bit, it was probably about 18-20ºC each day but not really warmer than that. We really missed the hot guaranteed sunshine days!
The one nice thing though is the long days. In the middle of ‘Summer’ it was still light at 10:45 pm! It slowly starts getting darker earlier until the end of October when it is light until about 6pm. Then daylight savings time end and it is suddenly dark at 5pm, too awful!
So we didn’t have a great Summer. It was very wet, cloudy almost all the time and often very windy. It is a good thing we had 10 years of practice in Cape Town! Just before it started getting cold we had an amazing 10 days of sunshine at the end of September. So that made it two full weeks of sunshine in the whole year! One week over Easter and 10 days in September. Too sad. When we viewed our apartment in February our landlord was very proud to show us the air conditioning unit in the bedroom. I remember thinking that we probably won’t need to use it and turns out I was right ‘~) However, the locals here agree that it was a very average Summer so that is at least encouraging and that it is not always like this! Here’s to hoping for a better one next time!
And then before you know it, it is getting cold again. At the moment the max daytime temperatures are between 8 and 13ºC which is not too bad. But we have had some 5ºC days. Those are the days when it freezes at night and my bicycle is covered in ice in the morning. Generally it is ok and we are handling at the moment. The last two winters have been early and particularly cold. No one really knows what to expect this year. There have been predictions for another cold one with lots of snow but so far this hasn’t happened. Everyone keeps saying how unusually warm it is for this time of year and when is the cold weather coming? The ski resorts (no not in the Netherlands, way too flat here!) were due to open this weekend but I’m not sure what snow they will be skiing on. so we will have to wait and see what the weather does this winter. Wish us luck!
Weather records this year:
- Most recorded sunshine hours this Spring, ever
- Hottest Easter since 1930 something
- Coldest June or July, can’t remember… it is best to forget these things! But there was no day above 25ºC which is the threshold for being considered Summer.
- Wettest Summer since 1960 something. Our neighbours asked us to water their garden while they were away over July/August. We didn’t have to even check on the garden never mind water it there was so much rain that month.
- Coldest Summer day since whenever. People at work were complaining that they had to put their heating on in the middle of ‘Summer’.
So this blog may sound like we complain about the weather a lot and never do anything because it is bleak outside but this is actually not the case. In the beginning we were pretty bleak about the weather but I think we have mostly gotten over it now. Capetonians have a great habit of becoming hermits in the winter time but Shell and Graham and Deirdre and Allen did a great job of getting us out of that habit in the UK and Ireland, respectively. We are trying hard to follow their example this Winter! But even over the wet Summer we still got out and did stuff and went exploring as the blog posts through this year show. We have decided to be over the weather since there is nothing you can do about it and just carry on as normal.
Having said that though it is hard not to miss the sun. We really do miss the sunny days in SA. Since moving over here we have really had to adjust what we consider to be a beautiful day. During the Spring and very average Summer we were still pretty fussy but now if the sun makes an appearance it is almost enough to qualify! But like I said, we try not to fixate on the weather and just get on with it.
So, now that we have discussed the weather we don’t have to go there again! Please be nice and not mention the lovely weather you are having during the wonderful SA Summer! Thanks ‘~) Future topics for Life in The Netherlands blogs will include food, life in Rotterdam and things we do/don’t like about living here. Suggestions and questions welcome!
Right now we are off to a Sinterklaas dinner and gift swop party! More about that next time.
Have a good week!
x
