It’s raining cats and dogs up here!

The society we live in likes to have an opinion about anything and everything, especially about what we don’t know! I’m not condemning it (just yet! ;-) ), it’s a fact.

And when these opinions are merely backed up by rumours, black and white pics in the local newspapers or simple popular beliefs, then they can turn into prejudices and be harmful.

Hopefully the prejudices I’ll try to fight here don’t hold any levity and might only be harmful for tourism… so let’s go fight this unfairness and increase the tourism in Scotland! ;-)

I’ll start this new category by what most be the most common prejudice about Scotland:

‘It’s raining all the time in Scotland!’

Before I start, I want to point out that some prejudices turn out to be pretty close to reality hence not being prejudices at all!

So… is it real cold, wet and rainy in Scotland?

Scots like to say: “there are two seasons in Scotland, the wet one, and the wetter one!” … and my, are they right! ;-)

It’s not so much that it’s raining quite often as the weather is unpredictable. It could very well be all sunny and warm and the next minute dark clouds appear and it starts raining.

Another popular saying jokes that the 4 seasons can be found on every single day, which isn’t far from reality.

We have a cool springs, warm-ish summer with plenty of very beautiful days to barbecue. Autumn is supposed to be a very nice season, and it was last year. I can honestly say that today is the best day we had since the leaves started to fall three months ago!

Winters can be harsh in the Highlands, in my part of the country, is quite wet, so we have a humid cold which can be upsetting. There is snow in every part of the country but in the Lowlands it won’t last for long.

All in all in 2006 I’ve experienced almost 30 degrees (34 were recorded in Glasgow this summer) in Northern Scotland, and roughly -3 last winter. It’s nothing incredible and being from the upper part of France, it’s not a big shock to me.

Although I must admit the storm that ragged up here for the last 4 weeks in a row really got on my nerves!

So bad weather in Scotland… not really a prejudice but it’s nothing too bad either and if it wasn’t for this rain, this country wouldn’t be so beautiful anyway!