UK never fails to surprise me

As a kid, I remember watching a hair-oil advert where a girl's friend makes fun of her hair saying," Your hair is just like London's weather, dull and no sun-shine." Of all countries in the world, I always dreamt of coming to the United Kingdom and when I am here, the weather always reminds me of the same advert I mentioned above.

If you have any chance of coming to UK ever, or if you are International just like me (who had all 4 seasons in their country), trust me, you will miss it here in UK. 

You should always be ready to face any kind of extreme weather condition here in UK and not to forget the rain. Always carry an umbrella or a rain-coat with you (if you don't check weather just like me) when you have any kind of outdoor plan.

I arrived here in mid September. It was the starting of Autumn (or fall as said by the Americans) and was so beautiful everywhere. The yellowish-green maple leaves and every other trees in parks and gardens and sub-ways looked beautiful. I had never enjoyed autumns or say, I never saw such breath-taking fall. And they say, Sheffield is one of the green city in Europe so you can imagine the Autumns here. The days were just perfect; not too cold or hot. But my bad, I only had jackets packed in my suitcase so, I had to don them every time. Who knew their usage was much more to come in near future.

Autumn in Sheffield Botanical Garden

Me playing with the Autumn leaves

Then, the fall slowly turned out to be ugly. The windy days and stormy nights blew off the colorful leaves. And then, came the shorter days with arrival of October. One evening after attending my English class I came out at 5.00 pm and it was already pitch-dark and that amazed me again. Mornings did not take off until 8 am and it still used to be so dark. And how many of you know there is shifting of time here in UK? I had no idea about it until I came here and my smartphone adjusted it's time by itself and I had to do that for my wrist-watch. That was so amazing that on last Sunday of October, the time went 1 hour backward which is known as daylight time. 

October was not that bad compared to rest of the winters in December, January, and February. Thank God! we had holidays during half of these months or else God knows I would miss most of my classes. The cold, freezing temperature and the worst part was rain with wind. It never stopped raining and the wind was terrible. They say 2015 was the warmest winter Sheffield had in many years (and we were still freezing). The sad and happy part was it didn't snow this year in Sheffield during winters. Well, we got to play with snow and build snowman one day. That was fun and I'd say a day for snowfall is great for here.

Thank God they have the heating system and 24*7 hot water service. If we had such terrible weather in Nepal, lot more people would be in winter death diary. Though we have an extreme cold in our countries as well, but its different than what we have here in the UK.

It was March when it snowed

And now, the situation is a bit better in April. You can feel the arrival of Spring. The yellow, white, blue and red dandelions mostly in every sidewalks and park; the cherry blossoming and the naked trees are starting to cover themselves in leaf buds.Though it was raining and slightly snowing until March, you can at least see the golden ball of fire called Sun shining sometimes. And not to forget, the British Summer Time has already started since March 27th (last Sunday of March) and my smartphone has shown its smartness again. And again! It doesn't get dark till 8 pm and the mornings are early at 5 am. I heard the nights are going to be brighter than this during summers. And these days, I am compelled to wake up at 7 am or cover my whole face with blanket because I get the direct light from my windows. 

Spring and Dandelions

Though I will already be gone from the UK during summers (which is very sad), I have already imagined the summers are going to be tooooo hot here because even the mild sun in spring is hot these days (provided that when we have bright sun which is rare).

And the most amazing thing about UK is its people. Seems like the English people never get cold. I have seen people in shorts even during January when I used to cover myself with 3-4 layers of clothes and hat and scarf. And just like those Nepalese ladies who didn't even bother to carry a shawl when they dress-up for any parties, the ladies in UK do the same thing. You can see the hot and bold ladies dressed up sleeveless on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in any of the extreme cold weather condition. (Maybe they have thick skin- No offense to anyone.)

Must have when you are in the UK besides the usual kinds of stuff- Umbrellas (plural because one is not enough. The windy rain remember) and wellies (if you are an introvert like me, you won't need one).

"Dull and no sunshine", If I wouldn't agree on that I would be wrong

but the weather in the UK really never fails me to surprise me. And as the time to leave the UK is approaching near, I think I will miss this crazy and bizarre weather condition 'coz I was kind of used to it now. :)