Lucky you Hosta! I went to the Gambia in (wait for it!) 1968.long before it was a tourist destination, on an educational cruise! They had to dredge the river as our ship was too big and we travelled round in requisitioned flatbed trucks with those long wooden benches with a narrow rail that you find in the gym. It was great! All the people were friendly but poor and wanted to buy things from us for literally peanuts - the major crop and currency back then. The sights and smells of the market remain with me still, as does my memory of the dusty patch of grass in the main square of Bathurst (as it was then) that was the cricket pitch. Bet that's not there any more! We went in January and also visited Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal. On the way back we had to put our winter woolies on when the temperature dropped to 70 degrees. The whole thing cost just £63! but that was still quite a lot for my parents to find at the time. When I first took the letter home I never expected to go.
February is absolutely the worst month for me. Stinking hot every day and no relief except in air conditioned areas. People spend more time sitting around shopping centres and in coffee shops. We got to 41c last Feb, yuk!
it just goes to show that we are never happy with our lot. Whatever happened to Camelot?
Exactly that, Pat. We can't control the weather (yet - I'm dreading the effect that will have when we can!) so we just have to make the best of what we get.
No such thing as bad weather - only inadequate clothing. (Who said that?)
I quite like January too - birds starting to nest, snowdrops, usually the only snow of the winter here. Trying to get a sailing trip going for some time in mid-winter but trouble getting the rest of the crew together. Can't think why. (The boat has hot running water and central heating).
Steve, inadequate clothing doesn't apply, I'm afraid. There is a limit to how much you can take off a 75 year old sagging body. (Horrible mental image there).
For the last three winters the express has got the prediction of a bad winter mixed up with that of the usa but I suspect that they get their long range weather information from the farmer’s almanac which is an American publication and gets the weather for the usa correct every time.
If so, maybe the Met Office shoud borrow their computer. Long range (i.e. more than a couple of weeks ahead) forecasting is still something of a lottery.
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Lucky you Hosta! I went to the Gambia in (wait for it!) 1968.long before it was a tourist destination, on an educational cruise! They had to dredge the river as our ship was too big and we travelled round in requisitioned flatbed trucks with those long wooden benches with a narrow rail that you find in the gym. It was great! All the people were friendly but poor and wanted to buy things from us for literally peanuts - the major crop and currency back then. The sights and smells of the market remain with me still, as does my memory of the dusty patch of grass in the main square of Bathurst (as it was then) that was the cricket pitch. Bet that's not there any more!
We went in January and also visited Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal. On the way back we had to put our winter woolies on when the temperature dropped to 70 degrees. The whole thing cost just £63! but that was still quite a lot for my parents to find at the time. When I first took the letter home I never expected to go.
Was -2° with a frost this morning. Only 5° now with a biting wind. This is Dordogne and it's only October!
February is absolutely the worst month for me. Stinking hot every day and no relief except in air conditioned areas. People spend more time sitting around shopping centres and in coffee shops. We got to 41c last Feb, yuk!
it just goes to show that we are never happy with our lot. Whatever happened to Camelot?
Exactly that, Pat. We can't control the weather (yet - I'm dreading the effect that will have when we can!) so we just have to make the best of what we get.
No such thing as bad weather - only inadequate clothing. (Who said that?)
I quite like January too - birds starting to nest, snowdrops, usually the only snow of the winter here. Trying to get a sailing trip going for some time in mid-winter but trouble getting the rest of the crew together. Can't think why. (The boat has hot running water and central heating).
Steve, inadequate clothing doesn't apply, I'm afraid. There is a limit to how much you can take off a 75 year old sagging body. (Horrible mental image there).
For the last three winters the express has got the prediction of a bad winter mixed up with that of the usa but I suspect that they get their long range weather information from the farmer’s almanac which is an American publication and gets the weather for the usa correct every time.
If so, maybe the Met Office shoud borrow their computer. Long range (i.e. more than a couple of weeks ahead) forecasting is still something of a lottery.
Steve , I thought more than 5 days is a lottery
when we bought our flat in Goa , we had air con installed but in the end we rarely used it.
It was 33C pretty much every day and night time mins , rarely lower than 23C .
We did once have the coldest spell of weather ever recorded there when it fell to 16C.
The local newspapers were full of stories of " the freezing weather conditions"