More rain. The United Kingdom is one endless swamp. While Scottish summers are normally somewhat misty, cool and at times downright cold, we slog through our days for the past year in a seemingly permanent state of early to late autumn.

I returned to the UK from VisaQuest on 18 June 2011 and bloody hell, it's rained just about every single day since. The temp rarely gets above 10C (roughly 50F) and has been that way for over a year now. We had a very mild winter, with temps ranging from 3-9C (36-48F). One meager snowfall that melted away an hour later on the 30th of December.

Oh yes, it snowed again sometime in January and lasted a few hours, but the real snow hit in mid-April (wth??!!) and lasted a couple of days. Refreshing, that.

I know in my heart of hearts that the coming '12-'13 winter is going to be harsh, extreme, a real whopper as winters go. I know this because the winter before last was preceded by a wash-out summer, and because the rowans are putting out an incredible lot of berries-a sure sign of impending harsh winter.

Right. We'll live, or we won't. We'll be prepared with a properly stocked store cupboard, or we won't. So I'll stop whining about the weather, and whine about...well, perhaps not.