It appears that the Scottish love to complain about the weather. That goes for people who aren't native Scottish, but who have lived here long enough to have inherited the complaining gene. Even when it's sunny, they will do a preemptive complain about the rain that is forcasted to arrive next week. When they hear I'm new to the country, I can pretty much quote them verbatim: "So, how are you handling this weather?"
What they fail to understand completely is that they are complaining to a northeast-Ohioian. There is no winter weather that I haven't watched from my window, walked through, or driven in. Cleveland averages 160 cm per winter of snow, and I would say there is more where we lived. Here is some evidence of what I have endured:
Okay, so now you understand a bit better. The house on right was ours, buried in snow. The benefit of living in Scotland is that instead of seeing one of the images above for four months, you get to see this:
And when they're not complaining about the two inches of snow, they are moaning about the rain. I do see now that it can get pretty miserable weather-wise, but it appears that people here have built an entire identity around it.
What many Scottish seem to forget is how incredibly beautiful their country is. It is. It's stunning. I try to tell them this in between the "it'll pish down rain for days on end" and "you should have seen the amount of snow we had last year." Sometimes people will listen. I got my painter reminiscing about boyhood days and working at Stirling Castle as a teen. I try to remind them, and sometimes they remember. Of course, I know how easy it is to take things for granted, but perhaps having a newcomer looking with fresh eyes will help them to see what they have.
And what I see is this: every day it looks different here. On rainy days, the mountains can be barely visible, covered at the top with clouds and fog. It can look downright eerie. Other days, the mountains are covered with snow, which makes them look completely different and gives them a definition that the green cannot. The snow here tends to perch on the branches of the trees, giving them a celestial, icy appearance. They look delicate and breakable. Some days, I mistake the low-hanging clouds for the mountains, and realize that the beauty is in the fact that it's impossible to distinguish which is which.
It is stunningly gorgeous here in any weather.
I will give the Scottish this, though....I've driven in a lot of winter conditions, and nothing's worse than driving when it's icy. Scotland appears to get snow, then freezing rain a lot. I watched out my window recently and happened to see a driver on my street slide right up onto the sidewalk. There's a lot of black ice here, and that's never good. But for goodness sake, brighten up, people! It could be worse! You could live in northeast Ohio. Weather is just weather. Enjoy what you have: beautiful, bonny Scotland.
