The Weather

That special feeling of cold icy air rushing through my body heralding the end of autumn only really served to remind me to shut the bedroom window before going to sleep.

Rhetorical question: How cold is it in the mornings? Mental note: Change over summer clothes to winter. Change summer duvets to winter. Decide on minimum temperature before the aircon switches to heating mode.

Kids coughing, their noses streaming endlessly, refuse to get out of bed. Yep, winter has arrived.

I am (was?) English I can take the cold, it’s a part of my culture, they don’t call us blue blooded for nothing (the Royals must really be cold, er, no comment).

And after all the initial panic, bracing ourselves for the change of season depression, the temperature shoots up, has a good laugh at us getting caught out in our winter woolies, and then plunges again. Another rhetorical question, why does it do that, I have a theory.

Sorry, I am rambling, but, in my usual ambiguous style, I am trying to get to the point.

Why do we find the difference between summer and winter so confusing? I know Olim who wear open toed sandals all year round. Despite the intense cold of a mountain evening, there they are prancing up and down Emek Refaim in their thick coats, scarves, and ‘sandalim’. Or the guys who wear T-shirts all through the winter, or at the first sign of rain even if its still 25 degrees will get out their winter apparel.

In the UK it was easy, when it was warm you wore light summer clothes and when it was cold you wore warm winter clothes. Why is it so confusing? What happens during the Aliyah process and even after years of living here that prevents us from understanding the simple formula of clothes = weather / temperature.

The other day, can’t remember which one, I walked through four different weather / temperature zones from wind and rain to hot and humid all in the space of about 15 minutes. By the time I had reached my destination I had removed three layers of clothing and flicked on the aircon.

Then I realized that in a small country where the landscape changes every 2 kilometers, where the political climate changes every 2 hours, where the only certainty is uncertainty, the weather just falls into line.

We have an Israeli culture and the weather just follows suit. Its the ‘I don’t care where you’re from, where you are going and what you’re wearing, I’ll do exactly what I want, when I want and how I want’ attitude.

I can just see it now, the new Ministry of Tourisms slogan:

Israel, Land of the Bible and Weather with Attitude.