Today on the blog it's my turn on the tour for A Vicarage Christmas with a wonderful guestpost from Kate Hewit. Don't forget to follow along with the other stops on the tour. There's also a brilliant giveaway at the end of this post so don't forget to enter!
GUESTPOST
How’s the Weather? by Kate Hewitt
A Vicarage Christmas is set in the Lake District, where I lived for four happy years. Four rather wet years, as the most difficult thing I found about living there was, yes, the weather. As an American ex-pat I sometimes wondered why Britons, generally speaking, seemed obsessed about the weather. After moving to the Lake District, I understood. I started checking the weather several times a day. It invariably was the thing I talked about most with neighbours, whether we were experiencing a ‘red hot’ day (maybe twelve degrees) or the usual sleeting rain and freezing temperatures. I compared the weather to other places I had lived, such as New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania—of course the Lake District almost always came out worse.
Why did I do all this? Because the weather was so awful. And yet I longed and hoped for better, and when it was better, it was amazing. It felt like the most beautiful place on earth. But on a day to day basis, the constant wind and rain (we lived on the coast, and often had gale-force winds to contend with, which meant the rain slanted sideways into your face) could get me down. The first day of school, my children wore winter coats and mittens. The pushchair I was pushing (empty) flew out of my hands and barrelled down the street. My daughter’s new Barbie umbrella turned itself inside out and then followed the pushchair. And it was early September, when in the States, people were still wearing t-shirts and shorts. Welcome to Cumbria.
The weather is an integral part of A Vicarage Christmas—snowy fells, glittering frosts, and yes, rain. I enjoy writing the setting of a story because I think it can add so much depth to the plot. And I’ve especially enjoyed writing about both the sunny and not-so-sunny days in the Lake District, because I remember them so well.
Now that I live in South Wales, I am enjoying a lot less rain. When people complain that Wales is rainy, I laugh. Compared to Cumbria, it feels like the French Riveria to me. But, complaining aside, the four years I spent in the Lake District were some of the happiest of my life, no matter what the weather. So in the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter quite as much as all that.
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