What a lot of weather …
It is said that the British have one subject of conversation: The Weather. I have turned into a joke and when the conversation slows and a silence develops, one of the techniques I use to break the silence is to comment: “What a lot of weather we have been having …”. I’m not sure where the phrase comes from – it sounds like something Tommy Cooper would have said – and I wish I could claim to have thought it up myself but, to be honest, I heard it once when I was much younger and thought it was amusing – and adopted it.
I suppose that the British preoccupation with the weather is understandable given our changeable climate. The Irish folksong may well have referred to “Perfidious Albion”, (the phrase actually comes from a French poem written in the late 18th century), but in Russian the most common version of the phrase is “Foggy Albion”. They seem to have the impression that Britain, (and London in particular), is in cloaked in a permanent fog haze. Part of this is connected with the interest in the case of Jack the Ripper and the “pea-soup” fogs of the 1950′s before the Clean Air Act was adopted. For the record – Britain is not usually foggy … and I sometimes get tired of explaining that we normally fog mainly in the autumn months.
It’s also known for it’s rainfall.
It’s true that we do get a lot of rainfall. Britain is an island and the Gulf Stream current and associated airflows bring warm air and moisture across the Atlantic Ocean and over the country.
Thompson and Thompson, two of the characters in Herge’s “Adventures of Tintin”, (in the original French they were called Dupont and Dupont), caricature the image of an Englishman in typical modern dress: they wear black suits, Bowler hats, and carry umbrellas. I am not very good at wearing hats … I lose them … I put them down somewhere and forget to take them when I leave. It’s the same with umbrellas. As a result I rarely use either. Often, when I go out and it is raining, I get asked: “Haven’t you got and umbrella?”, and I usually reply something like: “No, I always lose them. Anyway, why do I need one? I’m an Englishman and I am not worried by a little bit of rain … I’ll dodge between the raindrops.”
As well as bringing rain, the Gulf Stream makes the climate very variable. We can have bright sunshine one day and it can rain heavily the next – although nothing like an Indian Monsoon! As a result. our summers tend to be cooler than those experienced on the main European continent, and the winters milder. The climate is classified as “Temperate Maritime”.
The Kyrgyz climate, on the other hand, is “Continental” and is typified by hot dry summers and cold winters.
I remember that in my first summer here I found the heat a little difficult to bear. It was the first time I had ever experienced long periods of continuously hot temperatures, (what I considered to be “extreme” heat – but nothing like is experienced in some parts of the world), often well into the 30′s.
By contrast, the winters can be very cold, (though nothing like the temperatures encountered in Siberia or the Antarctic). Naryn, where we have a guesthouse, is known as the coldest town in Kyrgyzstan and temperatures have been known to fall as low as minus 40 degrees centigrade. That winter, my first here, I went to go shopping and walked just over a mile, (just over one and a half kilometres), to one of the main shops and then walked back to the apartment. When I went to bed that evening I was shocked to see that my legs were red raw. Over my upper body I had worn a vest (singlet), shirt, pullover, jacket, and short coat, but over my legs I had worn just trousers. My legs had been exposed to the biting wind and suffered accordingly. It was a lesson I learned well. Nowadays, when I go out in the winter, especially up to to Naryn, I always make sure that I take extra clothes, (especially “long johns”), and sometimes wear a pair of jeans over a second pair of trousers!
It’s odd really, because, when I was young I was never really bothered about temperatures. At school I could wander around in a pullover at the height of summer or in shirt sleeves in the dead of winter. That might have been because of the mild climate in Britain, or a feature of my contrary nature … I’m not sure. Now, I am much more careful and attentive to changes in temperature. I suppose that could be a feature of growing older, or just adapting to a more extreme climate. Once again, I’m not sure. Despite this, however, I can still be seen in a pullover in the middle of summer with the sun bearing down on a hot day and in shirtsleeves on a cold, blustery, winter’s day, when it is cold outside. The reason is quite simple: I tend to get up early in the morning and it is not clear what the day is going to be like, so I think about what it was like yesterday and dress accordingly. Because the weather is not exactly predictable or consistent, I sometimes get it wrong and get caught out …
We can experience very variable weather conditions her in Kyrgyzstan – just like back in Britain. It is one of the claims for Kyrgyzstan that its a place where it is possible to experience all four seasons in one day, especially if you travel into the mountains. In the morning it can be bright and fresh like a spring day, and later the sun can bear down like a hot summer’s day, then it may cloud over and the wind blow up like on an autumn day, followed by a snow storm. It can make it difficult to know what to wear. We always advise visitors to bring a sweater with with them even at the height of summer as you never know what the weather is going to do … and when you go into the mountains, it can get very cold, especially at night.
One thing about life here in Kyrgyzstan is the amount of sunshine we get. When I first came to Kyrgyzstan, I was told that there were 300 days of sunshine a year but that was probably an exaggeration … one source says that the average is 322 days, but another says it is only 247 days, (now, that is quite a big difference!). As a former Maths teacher I tend to treat such figures with disdain … how do you define a “sunny day”? Some of the weather services quote different statistics, (for example the number of hours of sunshine in a month, or the percentage of sunshine, each month), which are perhaps more meaningful but not so useful and attention grabbing as “Headline” figures.
Even if the figures are open to question, there is no doubt that there are a lot of days when the sun shines here in Kyrgyzstan. Even in the dead of winter with snow lying on the ground, it is not unusual for the sun to be shinning brightly.
Sunshine is usually thought to be a good thing.
For example, we talk about someone, especially our loved ones – our spouse or our children – as being “the sunshine of our lives”
It seems that it is important for our health: Sunshine is the source of Vitamin D, a chemical generated in skin which is exposed to sunlight and is important for the maintenance of the body’s organs and the immune system. A deficiency in Vitamin D can lead to a number of disorders such as Rickets in children and weak bones in adults.
Also, sunshine seems to be important for our happiness and well being: It seems that sunshine is important factor in making us feel happy. At least, a lack of sunlight is considered to be one of the primary causes of “Seasonal Affective Disorder”, (appropriately abbreviated as SAD ), which can bring on severe mood changes and depression in people. The disorder occurs mainly in the winter and is markedly more – and is also known as Winter depression or the “Winter Blues”
On the other hand, sunshine also has its drawbacks. Many people find direct sunlight too bright for comfort and wear sunglasses, peaked caps or visors. Cars often have darkened windows. When I do sit in the sun, (possibly sunbathing – but probably not), I find myself squinting when I am trying to read a book, (When I do sunbathe, I like to read because it helps me to feel that I am not wasting my time). Indeed, looking directly at the sun can cause permanent damage to the eyes, which is why you are not supposed to look directly at an eclipse of the sun.
Sunshine has also been linked to types of skin cancer, even sunburn can lead to inflammation. I have vitiligo – a skin disorder which causes the loss of pigment in the skin and results in pale (and sometimes purple) patches of skin appearing. Most people who develop vitiligo do so, apparently, in their youth – before they are twenty – but, to be honest, I can’t remember when I first noticed it. For young people, especially, it can be quite worrying but I’ve never been concerned about it … it isn’t very marked, (the most notable sign is the dark brown rings around the eyes), doesn’t hurt and I have never been all that worried about my appearance and being one of the beautiful people. Also, the people here are not worried about it, it is not seen as a stigma as it is in some parts of the world. One thing I am conscious of is that the pale skin, because it lacks pigmentation, lesions can develop and are more prone to develop skin cancer. There are various ways to avoid this. The Australians used to have a “Slip, slop, slap” campaign: “slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat”. My doctor tells me that I should always be careful when I go into the mountains in the summer – for example, up to Naryn – and to always wear a hat. However, as I said, I am not very good at wearing hats … I lose them.
Normally, people from colder countries, (like the UK), tend to prefer sunny climates and avoid the shade. They sunbathe a lot and like to get a tan. Personally, I don’t really like sunbathing, it seems such a waste of time … as I said, I usually read a book while others lie back and soak up the sun’s rays. In hotter countries people try to stay in the shade and stay indoors in the middle of the day when the sun is at its strongest.
They also seem to appreciate rain. I am often surprised to hear comments from locals like: “I love the rain”. Despite what I said above about changeable weather conditions and experiencing all four seasons in one day, we don’t really get that much rain here in Bishkek during the long hot sultry days of summer. As a result, a shower can freshen things up and cool things down, and in that way it is a pleasant thing. It’s also good for the plants, the fruit and crops that need water to grow.
In recent times it has also been important for another reason. The mountains of Kyrgyzstan are home to a number of Hydro electric power stations – dams holding back extensive reservoirs. The first reservoir constructed in the country, (the Orto Tokoi reservoir, just outside Kochkor), was built for irrigation purposes, not hydroelectricity, but many of those subsequently but were for generating power. Indeed, after almost 18 years of Independence, there are now plans for even more, massive, power plants to be constructed in the near future.
The largest reservoir in the country is behind the Toktogul Dam which controls the flow of the River Naryn and generates much of the country’s electricity output. Unfortunately, in recent years the level of water in the reservoir has been falling, and this was made worse by the very cold winter in 2007, which led to a over the last winter (2008/9) there wasn’t enough water in order to maintain production art the sort of levels the country needed. It was clear there was a serious problem fairly early on because there was an official announcement that the “plan” for replenishing the water levels in the reservoir hadn’t been fulfilled. Plans here are always fulfilled. It was a feature of the Soviet Centralized Planning of the Economy. The plan was all important. It was always fulfilled. So an official announcement that it hadn’t was quite an admission.
Anyway, as a result we faced a winter of rolling power cuts.
This week, the forecast is for rain nearly every day … light rain and showers … which will please quite a lot of people and be good for the crops, and the reservoirs … and, people keep joking about how it will help to remind me of home.
Bishkek