Changing weather - A story about British weather

GREENWICH

Everyone knows that when two people meet in the street or on a train, the first thing they talk about is the weather. They say things like "It's turned out nice again, hasn't it?" or "Not too bad for the time of year, is it?"I never used to understand why they were so interested in such a boring subject until I'd been living here for a couple of months.It was a day in July last year - July is supposed to be the height of the British summer - I remember the day really well. I got up at the usual time to go to the university - it was a bright, sunny morning, actually quite warm for Britain - so I wore my T-shirt, my oldest jeans and a pair of open sandals. To be on the safe side, I also took a thin pullover just in case it turned chilly in the evening.On the way to the university the wind got up, then it suddenly clouded over, went really dark and began to rain. I wasn't just a gentle shower - it was a real downpour. Okay, so everyone knows it rains a lot in Britain, but that's not the end of the story.Ten minutes later, I looked out of the window again and I couldn't believe it - the rain had turned to snow. By two o'clock in the afternoon it felt like mid-December. People decided to leave their cars at work and walk home instead because they didn't want to have an accident or get stuck in the snow. I wondered how on earth I was going to manage in just my T-shirt and pullover. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried - almost as quickly the weather changed again. By 4 o'clock it was really warm and I had to take my pullover off.So that's the answer - everyone talks about British weather because it's so unpredictable. The funny thing is that even though it is completely unpredictable, most British people make sure they listen religiously to the weather forecast at least twice a day. Then if it's wrong, which it almost always is, they complain about how unreliable the weathermen are and then go on to discuss the current state of the weather.