laserguy

Try doing nights! Personally I love it - none of that dreadful sunshine nonsense and it gives you incredible flexibility during the day. More folk should try it - especially summer types who whinge and moan about being stuck in the office on 'nice' days. Nick L - how are you finding night shifts?

Oh God it's terrible around here. Why, I've had to go outside twice to reposition my wheelie bin.

Horses for courses an' all that.... I get up at 4am one week out of three, and it's a breeze doing it in winter, compared to doing it after a sleepless summer night cos of the heat and light. I can't really acclimatise to anything cos I work all the shifts under the sun... and moon.

For sure - the dark season is all too brief, despite the constant protestations to the contrary from summer-types. Let's make the most o' it while we can as not many of us are blessed with a gift that way.

I'm getting drunk with excitement - absolutely love that sudden plunge into darkness at around teatime and the abrupt death of any last vestige of summer and all its attendant horrors.

You are of course referring to me. Kindly point out where I've claimed to be 'hard' for being intolerant of warmth. It's all in your fevered mind - by my own admission I'm the softest of the lot where warmth is concerned. Or hadn't you noticed?

I,of course, love the rapidly diminishing light levels at this time o' year. But the best bit is just around the corner when we lose an hour's worth of light in the evening in one hit and suddenly it's dark at teatime! Can't wait. Oh why can't it always be so?

Besides, everyone who has their heating on unnecessarily ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves - think of the environmental carnage and contribution to global warming for Pete's sake! I'm surprised that NW's climate change contingent haven't given y'all 'what for' by now. First sentence was a joke by the way. The second one wasn't....

Gaah, you lot still at it? At 0630 today I was outside on a fork lift truck wearing just jeans and t-shirt (me, not the truck) in horizontal rain. Beautiful and refreshing and a thousand times better than doing the same trick a coupla months back in glaring sun and silly warm temps. Heating?? Pah.

Me personally - no. But there's always the missus to contend with....

I'm still walking up and down, indoors and out, in nothing more than a pair of tracky bottoms. Cold? God I'd be so lucky.

Y'all going even softer than usual. Had the windows and doors open all day yesterday and even the missus, who is very susceptible to 'cold', didn't once complain or even hint at putting the heating on. Why, I've got the back door open right now to let some more of the horrid accumulated summer warmth escape into the morning air.

As usual. Getting to something and a sign o' the times when a perfectly ordinary 'event' is made out to be anything but.

Me neither - it's like all these dippy weather forecasters and folk who exclaim "it's raining again"! with a pained expression, when the reality is usually that we haven't had a drop for weeks and they've somehow missed the intervening dryness. It's all a state of mind, and a highly deluded one at that.

Ye it's been a long time coming, Tony27 - but things can only,and will, get better from here on in after the worst September that I can personally recall.

Up here we had the worst of both worlds. A bit of snow wouldn't have gone amiss, as it wouldn't for anyone. But neither did we get any of the storms - all I could do was was watch the scenes on telly wistfully as everyone else got all the fun. A borefest of Biblical proportions for sure.

I live in a detached drum but it's a bit weird in that it has no windows on the south side - thank god for that.

Y'all heard the weather lore term 'weather breeder', right? Let's hope this dismal autumn so far is just that, and a calamitous period of storms and cold replace it. It's got to happen.

Hardly - it's like comparing Old Peculier with Kaliber and saying "ye well the latter is still beer". Meanwhile, light levels aside, this could easily pass for a July evening. Absolutely disgraceful.

Ye - and I'm continually amazed by the number of folk on here who think it's good. So-called weather enthusiasts getting all excited at an almost total dearth of 'weather'. How's that work then?

Even more of what we've had for the last God knows how long. Without a doubt the worst September I can recall in all my fifty years. Apocalyptically bad, just dreadful. I can't find any words to convey the hideousness. To think I looked forward to Autumn as well. Horrible,horrible,horrible day, and just the latest in a long,long line of them.

The missus and kid were wailing about being cold last night, and being the big softie that I am, I allowed them to put the radiators on... but only after they'd waited three hours with their little blue fingers and noses until I'd gone to work at 10pm.

The only thing 'cold' about me is my heart.

As should everyone. As for pubs - seething cesspits of depravity and debauchery fuelled by an unfathomable desire to attain that state by spending a fortune on something you can make better yourself for much less, to be enjoyed in the tranquil and civilised environs of your own home. However... if you have to visit such places the best time is on a winter's evening at the onset of a blizzard. Leaving said hostelry at chucking out time to be confronted by a raging snowstorm to accompany you on your journey home is one of life's unsung pleasures.

I'll consider putting the radiators on when my ale struggles to ferment - and not a moment sooner. There really is no other excuse for it.