Scotland sounds like a tough place to live

It doesn't get extremely cold. In fact, tree ferns (which are considered semi-tropical) can be grown all along the western coast of Scotland. This also explains why kilts were a traditional dress, where men's knees could be exposed.
The thing is though it just remains persistently cold, and damp.
An entire half of the year is cold, and the summers do not last long.

The grasslands of Scotland are very slow to revert to forest, mainly for the reason that there is not a very adequate level or time period of warmth for plants to grow throughout the year. Somewhere at the same latitude in Russia, the forest would grow faster, because although it may get much colder in the winter there is a longer period of warmth during the other half of the year. This is why there are vast swaths of Scotland with barely any trees. Livestock or deer will chew the new seedling tree down before it has a chance to grow, because it grows so slowly.

6 months out of the year is pretty miserable in Scotland. Perhaps an additional two months on top of that is not the most pleasant, with the temperatures being uncomfortably cold except sometimes in the middle of the day if the sun manages to shine through, the sky being glaringly overcast grey, and a constant drizzle of light rain often falling.

The summers are pleasant, but still cool for much of the summer. And the duration of the summers are somewhat shorter than they are in other countries like England, France, or Germany.

It has long been a known thing that the English do not want to live in Scotland. This is due to a combination of much fewer available amenities, climate, and a little bit less job opportunity, due both to lower population density and more of the wealthy preferring to live in the south of Britain.

Scotland is an interesting combination. Overall a little more conservative than England in some ways (guns, hunting, care about individual liberties) but also a large poorer working class, and the politics that go along with that.

 

the "kilt" for want of a better word, was traditionally a long type of "coat" or a long blanket (almost like a saree I guess) wound round and worn over working clothes and trousers its not until recently it transformed into a skirt.

As a tip for you; a bit of history if you will - my family lived on Deeside up near Banchory and Peter Culter in Aberdeenshire on the banks of the river Dee. Both sides of the Dee valley and the hills beyond were ancient forest (with big trees not wee stunted ones) the Canadian Lumberjack Corps moved in in 1940 and cleared the lot within a year they did it in a way that killed the top soils and you can still see the tree stumps today. This happened all over Scotland, the old ancient forests were all cut and the countryside was left devastated. It wasn't until the 1960s/70s that the forestry commission started to reforest but with norwegian pines, however, a lot of the land owners didn't want the forests replanted as they could make more money charging rich folk to hunt grouse or deer on the newly created moorland - trees struggle to grow in certain places because the traditional ground cover has gone - thanks to WWII

 

You adapt to the weather where you are after a year or so. When I moved from the warm hug of the south up to the frigid northeast, the first winter was hell. After that when I would come home, I would be completely comfortable in shorts in weather I used to wear a coat in. When I moved back, surviving that first summer was likewise hell because I had gotten used to not living in the heat and humidity.

 

'The warm hug of the South!!' From memory the only difference between an English summer and and English winter was that the rain got slightly warmer.

 

Why?

 

Coming from a place that sees summers reach temperatures of almost 50c, Scotland sounds like sheer heaven.

 

As far as I know, there is some scientific studies that show a possible link between light exposition and depression, so it's maybe a biological origin of that. Obviously, not individuals are equal on that.
It's noticed also that northern country tend to have higher suicide rates than southern ones (Scandinavia could be described as the suicide belt of Europe). I grew up in Normandy, that's the region with the least light of France, and we tend to have pretty high suicide rate there.
Having a depressive tendancy and following doctors advices, I'm cautious to eat more fat fish (mostly mackerel and herring) because they have more Omega 3 and I tend to take vitamin D supplement. You synthetize vitamin D by exposing your skin to light (and you can synthetize most of it during summer), and most locals are deficient in that vitamin D. However, the exact links between vitamin D and depression are still debated.

I still love my birth region, It just need a little bit of attention to food to avoid some of its downsides.

 

Oh it's real, for sure. Lack of light is a significant factor in 'mood'.

But it's not the latitude and/or climate which is the problem, as any outdoor exposure is beneficial. The problem has arisen via the amount of time people spend INDOORS. Historically, humans have always spent far more of their daylight hours outdoors, than indoors.

 

I think he refers to "the South" in the United States.

 

Well that makes sense - and would be a shock. On the plus side though at least he now has access to a national health service to cover all the pneumonia and vitamin D deficiency related health costs costs he'll be piling up.

 

The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. Temperatures that never rise above 7c for 5 months out the year will really get to you.
Imagine you are sitting inside your own home and even if you have a thick long sleeve cotton shirt on and a normal jacket on made of 50% cotton and 50% polyester it will still not be warm enough. You will feel the bone-chilling cold seem to go right through the jacket. And this is when you are inside your own home and it is not even the coldest season of the year. In Scotland you will need a thick wool sweater and then a jacket on top of that. Anything made with even 50% cotton is not going to be warm enough. This isn't just some small part of the year, this is normal for half the year.

I suspect it may not even be the light so much but the constant feeling of cold. With grey overcast skies, the actual experienced temperatures are much lower.
You can be out on a winter day where the air temperature is very cold, but if it's a warm sunny day the temperature you will feel is quite a bit warmer than what the air temperature is, since the sunlight will warm you.

With temperatures that are below 1.5c for most of the day, and grey overcast skies that do not relent, most people are not going to feel like going outside, even if they have warm clothes. The cold damp outside will just be very uncomfortable.

During the month of December, for example, Glasgow has on average only 33 hours of sunshine. That's during the entire month!

 

If people like a consistently mild climate then north and central Ethiopia is your spot. Temperatures sit in the mid-20 degrees celcius range (low to mid 70s for the rest of you) all year round. It is exceedingly rare to get a day above 28 or below 18 - most Ethiopians (pretty much everyone in the highlands) consider anything above 30 to be hellishly hot. Night time temps rarely get much below 10 (50). This is consistent. About three months of the year there is a fair bit of rain, the rest is pretty sunny.

The only downer is if you like water based leisure activities. Ethiopia has lovely lakes, but most have some rather unpleasant parasites in them.

Personally I'm fond of my home town of Melbourne. While we do get some very hot days - most years we get a few above 40 (100) and a few below 10, but most of the year is very pleasant. Even better, the weather is very changeable, so if you don't like it just wait a day or two - for fans of the band Crowded House, they were inspired to write 'Four Seasons in One Day' while living in Melbourne.

Scotland is just TOO DAMN COLD for me. Canada & Scandanavia too (and England while I'm at it). They seem like pretty nice places to visit, but I could maybe cope with summer there, then off somewhere else for me.

 

Am from Edinburgh Scotland

 

When I lived in Dundee, Scotland, I have often been to Edinburgh.

 

I would lose my mind. That's Truman Show nightmarish to me.

Four distinct seasons are so good for the all important sense of renewal.

 

I was in Edinburgh once and it wasn't cold at all. The coldest places I've been was out-of-doors in Leningrad in December and indoors with my first wife.

"Sleeping under a table in a roadside park
A man could wake up dead
But it sure seems warmer than it did
Sleeping in our king-sized bed ..."
Charley Pride

 

I have never been to Dundee gone past fife for some reason would love to but we can't put our cat in a cattery has he has medical issues eg needs medication etc and we have no family members who can look after him. we couldn't go there and get back in time for his medication.

 

If you ever go there or to Saint Andrews, give my regards to the people there.

 

For the third time Lindis has picked up a thread from two years ago and containing posts from a banned member.
Is this normal?

 

Probably no more abnormal than keeping track of such things....

Any thread around here more than several months old is going to contain post from banned members

 

More people live in London than in the whole of Scotland.

Also, yup, their politics is stupid. Obviously England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are separate countries, so if you take each of their balance of payments separately within Europe (when the UK was still a member of the EU), Scotland posted the largest deficit for the last 13 to 14 years of the EU. Sturgeon is a clown, so are her supporters. I live in Southern Scotland and thankfully, she ain't popular in these parts.

 

I have lived in Scotland and I did not think it a tough place to be.

 

I Love Scotland

 

....the Gorbals back in the day.....wow....that was nasty

 

If you're a weak guy ... don't go to Scotland.

I've been in Ireland and Scotland many times.
The Scottish Highlands are "worse" than Ireland.
The Scottish Lowlands are well better than Ireland.

I would say that for an Italian coming from the Alps ... Scotland looks like my home.
It's not colder than the Alps and weather is substantially the same.