Up North - Down South

I've just replied to your question on the "Good Morning" thread "NanKate*!
(I agree with you)

The benefits of living up in the North East far out weigh the lower temperature, we have got it all up here.
I visit my Sister in London yes its warmer but wouldn't change places with her for anything.

Manchester is much like the rest of the country this time of year. Sunny and quite warm today, and nearer to the city itself it's usually a couple of degrees warmer than the outskirts in the Peak District and towards Yorkshire. I've been frozen in Cornwall in June, but don't expect it to be like that all the time. Weather changes if you wait a day or two!

You wouldn't be frozen in Cornwall so far this June, the weather is glorious, hot and blue skies.

There is a difference between the hills and the city, where we don't get the same strong winds and rain. Manchester Airport nearby has comparatively low rainfall to the Pennines.

One May Day bank holiday, caravanning in Suffolk, we found the top of the milk frozen. In Kent, I have felt the bitter wind apparently all the way from Siberia. In Cheshire this year, we have had very little frost and missed out on the flooding suffered in the Thames Valley and Somerset Levels. Right now, my thermometer is reading 21C. So let's have no more generalisation about a climatic North/South divide!

I am from the North, and for me there is no contest, the South wins on weather alone. The South East is dryer and warmer, and considerably less windy. I have lived in lots of different places, so am just answering this with honesty, no defensive loyalty to the place I grew up in [we can't help where we are born] and I never understand the North/South divide thing which some people get het up about.Each county has places of beauty and interest, good shopping etc. but on weather alone, the South wins.

I'm in the middle and I think we have everything we need in Birmingham - theatres, large concert venues, a beautiful canal area with cafes, restaurants and bars. We have lots of food markets including an annual International Food Fair which is great, more shops that you can shake a stick at and friendly folk. Lots of lovely countryside and National Trust properties within easy reach. I think it's swings and roundabouts really. I have a friend who lives in Devon and it's lovely and she loves it but often complains that they can't get to see plays and shows that she would like to see.

annodomini is right about the south not necessarily having warmer/drier weather. My mum lives in Suffolk. It has unusually low rainfall but can get bitterly cold. I believe Plymouth has quite high rainfall.

I lived in the north west for four years and couldn't cope with the much wetter (than Sussex) weather there.

I think, though, that if you have lived in a place all your life or for a very long time you often form an attachment that can override matters such as bad weather. There can be great comfort in knowing a place inside out and of being surrounded by things and people you are totally familiar with - neighbours, shopkeepers, friends, family etc.

Of course, there are people who have naturally "itchy feet" and who enjoy the excitement of moving to new places, making new connections and meeting new challenges.

I was born and have always lived in Kent. I love the scenery of the Yorkshire dales. I've been to York a few times but only ever passed around other Northern cities. I also like Scotland, Edinburgh is beautiful but like all cities I'm sure there are some bad areas. I think every where in Britain has its share of good and bad weather.
The advantage of the North as I see it is house prices. I don't know how the cost of living compares. I wouldn't have though there would be a significant divide.

Yes, roses if you live in the hills anywhere the wind and rain will be more prevalent than living on a plain. I wouldn't choose to live in the Peak District, which I love and visit nearly every week, because I prefer not to be snowed in during some days in winter, as we used to be when we lived just a few miles away from here in Manchester, on the edge of the Cheshire plain. There are advantages to living in most places and a slightly higher temperature is only one of them.

The first time I holidayed in the Yorkshire Sales I had to find somewhere to buy a long sleeved shirt and a jumper. I had left warm southern weather behind! Love the North though. Countryside, and towns.

Dales! Not sales.

Our little patch of the southeast can get very hot, and dry. Nice apart from that though.

I have lived in York, central Lincs, all over Kent, Hampshire (Winchester) and now central east Anglia.

I have loved them all but for different reasons.

Yorkshire - gets too dark in the winter. I don't like being too hot, but the snow there really did last too long in the winter, plus temps not above freezing on many days. Otherwise glorious.

Mid-Lincs - drier but flatter so the winds whipped across from Siberia in the winter. Also it frequently registered 0C during the day for weeks on end and like Yorkshire, when snow came it could be around for weeks.

Suffolk, border with Norfolk - I live in an unusual area on the edge of the UK's only desert, so we have baking summers with no rain, and feeezing winters. It's better just inland from the coast, away from winter's east winds. It has been up in the late 20s all this week, the same as my friend's in central France. It varies hugely in this county as I can see from various relatives I have dotted all over this area.

Kent - Incredibly, baking hot in the summer most years, 31C not unusual. My daughter is still down there and has a tan long before I do. It's not quite as dry as where I am, but the grass is still toast by mid July most years. Central Kent near Ashford was always the area I knew would get hit with the most snow, but although we had the odd -12C, it didn't last, nor did snow - in fact some years we never saw any snow at all, unlike any other area I lived in. One year we barely had a frost. Temperatures are usually at least 6C during the day (I am a gardener so temperatures were always very important to us in nurseries) and rarely go below freezing. If a heavy snow falls you can usually count on it to be gone after a couple of days.

Winchester - very grey and wet, because the western side of the UK has a far heavier rainfall, which is why Cornwall can feel cold in the summer. Again, in the summer, it was nothing to be above 30C, but we did have more snow - because it was more likely to rain. I spent all my winters in Hampshire in the longest raincoats I could find, and all my winters in Yorks and Lincs scared to go out without a hat.

The heating bills up there of course can be astronomical until your blood gets used to the cooler temperatures.

DBH's parents want to move to Alnwick, and the thought of travelling up there for Christmas fills me with dread, because I got quite used to people in cars having to sleep in them in snowdrifts during the night when I lived in Lincs (my village used to take hot drinks out to them) and it was often hard to get out of York. I worry that once we are up there we won't be able to get home! And they keep their house temperature way below what I can cope with.

I live in the, statistically, driest part of the country. So can someone explain to me why it is raining?

You must be near me, then - and it wasn't in the weather forecast either! But such a relief as the storms promised for last week never materialised here, and I have been having to water the garden as bushes were starting to droop.

North west Lancashire..here...like OP think you get acclimatised to your areas weather, we are an hour away from the coast and 20 mins to the Ribble Valley Countryside so feel like we are quite lucky.The weather..yes! can be very wet!! lol..but not much we can do about it, we once tavelled all the way down to Western super mare....had to come back after 2 days, it was just torrential rain and we were camping,! love Wales and Llandudno.

I am in Colchester janerowena and am afraid it is our fault as we invited people over for a BBQ lunch.

You are near my cousin then, in East Bergholt and she says the same! I'm just north of BSE.

My sister lives in Scotland and I'm in south Devon. Sometimes her weather
is better than ours, but not often. Generally it's warmer down here.

Even a few degrees further north will generally be cooler, as will a few hundred meters of height. Add in the west winds that have passed over a warmer Gulf Stream sea and the clouds they blow over, which will drop their rain when they have to rise over higher ground, and the east winds that have come from the cold North Sea and Scandinavia to arrive on the east coast. Then there are all the complications of altitudes, wind direction and so on. It is not surprising that our climate is so unpredictable.

DS and DIL left London to come and live in the north, it suits them to be in a cooler climate. They holiday in Scotland, Norway and Iceland I find it warmer at my home in the west but much wetter and in the east it gets quite a lot of fog.

KatyK

I was born in Birmingham and lived there until I was in my early thirties - I would agree with your comments; Birmingham has it all (apart from being near the coast) and some of the most beautiful countryside right on the 'doorstep' and rail links which make most places accessible for day trips.

If there is one thing I do miss here, it's easy and affordable access to cultural activities.