A question of degrees

I’m a Northern boy. Never lived south of Teesside in the north east of England, and spent my last eight years in the UK in the chilling wastes of Aberdeen, where shirt sleeves in the depths of winter were de rigueur, and hypothermia was something invented by people south of the border.

But living in Asia for more than twenty years seems to have changed me. On our recent visit to Tak it felt decidedly chilly in the mornings, such that I was forced to wear a warm jacket that I had brought along for emergencies. And this was an emergency, it was bloody freezing.

So I was somewhat surprised to check the thermometer and find that the temperature was 19 degrees Celcius, slightly warmer than the hottest day ever recorded during an Aberdeen summer (a season which lasts no more than a week), and a temperature which would have had us stripped to bare essentials and consuming gallons of cooling ice cream, rather than seeking refuge in a warm jacket, whimpering like a puppy and sipping hot soup for warmth.

The shot is a little blurred, but that is because my hands were shaking with the cold. It seems that my body has adjusted to living here and sadly this means I could never, ever go back and live in the UK. Such a shame.

And it has become colder since my ordeal in Tak. Yesterday the local media reported:

Temperatures In Thailand Dropped To 15 Degrees Celsius; 2 Dead.

It’s tough in the tropics.

Comments 🔗

2009-11-23 | Jock says

Jeez … we spent 8 years trying to toughen you up … and all for this eh? Actually it’s 22 degrees in Riyadh and after the 45 - 50 degree heat of the summer I’m even wearing long sleeve T-shirts .. so I do sympathise. I’m off to Milan on Thursday - end of contract - where it’s near zero …. not sure if I’ll survive the winter …

2009-11-24 | Farang Jai Dee says

I gotta go with the flow and say the same thing. Being a Northern Boy from the USA I now find that when it hits below 20C I am cold. Not chilly but cold up here in Nongbulampoo.

Last night I put on a light jacket for the first time and walked down to where a zillion people where eating (our payment for their help with the rice harvest on our land). There where screeches of laughter at this farang. He is cold like us.