Heading down to -18 Celsius tonight (-10 F) and ony a high of 5 F tomorrow with winds - a foot and a half of snow on the ground

I am pining to get to Eltham ASAP.

Why do you people live in places like this?

This is a serious question. It sounds absolutely hellish.

I am pining to get to Eltham ASAP.

Author: Cholmondley_Warner

Why do you people live in places like this?

This is a serious question. It sounds absolutely hellish.>

I actually think Eltham is kind of nice but i can see why you say that about it.

Eltham's horrible but it does have a survivable climate.

Why do people live in places that are trying to kill them?

CW, to answer your question - we live in places like this because we were born here (this is what we know) and our families with whom we are very close all live in Canada. My husband has a superb job that he loves and is successful at so it is difficult to leave.

However, we will soon be spending half our time in Canada (moving to a warmer part of the country - most of it is warmer than where we are) and half in Europe. That way we get to see family but also avoid this horrid climate! :)

I'm always amazed when I see America on the news - forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes etc as to why anyone would live in these places.

I suppose I take for granted how ridiculously benign England is. Our biggest predator is the badger and our only poisonous snake is mortally afraid of people.

But what about 'Mad Cow' disease?

She was ousted by John Major!

vCJD killed a dozen people. More people are killed in the usa falling off cows in the name of sport.

D--- colder than the Netherlands
http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artike...togallery.html

click "volgende" to see the next photo

CW:

One thing is that it keeps out a lot (but certainly not all) of the riff-raff. Don't get mad at me - I'm not calling YOU riff-raff. I mean the real baddies. Also, it kills all insects for portions of the year, which is a good thing if you are an insectophobe like I am.

It isn't always as cold as now (-16F today where I live), but you raise a good point. On the plus side, NOTHING fazes us cold-wise except for parts of Canada and Siberia. We get some bragging rights as to how tough we are. And when it gets to 10 F we will all be in T-shirts and sandals while most of the rest of the world will still think it is winter!

No, no Markrosy. The REAL mad cow is a former co-worker of mine. I don't call her that to her face because she has a hair-trigger temper, outweighs me by 30 pounds, and is really, really into guns. BAD combination.

''I'm always amazed when I see America on the news - forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes etc as to why anyone would live in these places.''

Oz is worse - the land of bitey stingy things! And if I'd known in advance about the wolf spider (a form of tarantula), I would never have gone to Italy either.....

Poohgirl, where do you live? I know what you mean about bragging rights. Our weather (N Canada) is very similar to that of Siberia and often even colder so I think we pretty much have the monopoly on these rights.

But we also get 100F in summer, too, so suffer with extremes. We are hardy folk but since we all need something to complain about, our thing is our climate. In sort of a morbid way we are secretly proud that we can handle it! ;)

But this cold does kill of most insects which is a good thing. However, we also have the biggest mosquito problems - they are huge and they suck.

t2l2: I live in Minnesota.
I think you definitely deserve the full bragging rights. I didn't even think of your extreme summers, too. Yowza.

((#))

Here - a little bit of warmth and sunshine for you. It's the best I could do.

I've sniveled for a a month about the six feet of snow that fell during December. I've also posted about a moose calf (375 lbs) that fell into someone's basement here in town and mentioned the occasional mountain lion or small bear that wanders into the suburbs.

Last month was very cold, with nighttime and sometimes daytime temps -5 F or thereabouts. This month, however, because daytime temps are above freezing, the snow is melting, though we are left with enormous piles of dirty snow.

Yes, we had a couple of minor earthquakes several years ago, and of course, there are the annual forest fires.

However...most the year is great. Warm, but not too warm, with glorious autumns. I'm reminded of a racing buddy of my brother-in-law, who comes from rainy, foggy, overcast Seattle. When he comes to Spokane he always raves about the effing, b*tching weather.

Oh, gosh, sorry. I thought better of the above post and meant to delete it but hit the wrong line.

Poohgirl, thanks - I'll take what I can get! :) At least the days are finally starting to get just a wee bit longer - barely noticeable but it is happening - YAY!