Hey everyone and welcome back to the Understandable English Podcast.
I hope everyone has been enjoying the great weather in Moscow, if you're from Moscow or St.
Petersburg, and I think in many areas of Europe right now as well.
Today's topic is going to be about summer in the UK and a little bit about weather and also summer in Russia and how they are different.
So if you're not from Moscow, for example, I can tell you that the weather has been so warm over the last few weeks.
It has been very hot recently.
Some days it has been as warm as 34 degrees Celsius.
This is something that I am not used to.
It is extremely hot for me.
In the UK in the summertime the weather usually only gets to the mid-20s, so maybe 24, 25 and occasionally, on a very rare day, it could reach high 20s or even 30 degrees.
However, this is usually in the south of England, so in London, Brighton and all of those places along the south.
In the north, our weather is much more mild, so it is not as warm, it is more moderate.
In general.
Some summers we can even have weather that is like 13, 14 or even 15 degrees Celsius, which is not very hot.
When I first moved to Moscow two months ago, it was starting to get very hot and I realized that I didn't bring a pair of shorts.
I had many t-shirts and shirts and jeans and trousers and trainers, but I didn't have a lot of clothes prepared for the hot weather.
For the first few weeks I just suffered.
So I struggled with the heat, wearing heavy, warm jeans and really desiring and wishing for a pair of shorts.
Recently, I finally bought some clothes for warmer weather.
So some shorts, I have some t-shirts, and I am much more prepared.
Another problem I quickly encountered is that I didn't have air conditioning in my apartment.
I guess air conditioning is quite expensive.
It is a big investment to pay for air conditioning each month, to get it installed and to buy it.
And I just don't have it.
This makes sleeping very difficult at night time.
So I'm very hot, I'm sweating, and I'm trying my best to stay cool.
Even while I record this podcast, it is 32 degrees Celsius.
I've also had to close the window to remove sound, so unnecessary sound, from outside, during this recording, during this podcast.
At night time, I have had a very difficult choice.
So whenever I go to sleep at night, I have to decide whether to open the window or not.
So you might ask, why Oliver is that such a big choice?
Well, I live very close to a lot of trees.
There are lots of trees and bushes outside of my window.
So if I open the window mosquitoes, so these insects which bite you and suck your blood, they fly into my apartment at night and they bite me.
So I have to choose between being too hot and sweating or being attacked, being bitten by mosquitoes.
So far I have primarily so.
I have mainly chosen to be bitten by mosquitoes and have the window open.
So not only am I warm and hot while recording this podcast, but I also have a lot of mosquito bites and I'm very itchy.
So being itchy is when you want to scratch the bites.
So it gives you that uncomfortable feeling when... where you want to scratch it with your fingers.
So some people have asked me, what is summer like in the UK?
Do you have mosquitoes?
Is it very warm?
What do people do?
And I'm going to talk a little bit about that.
So in general, in the UK, we don't really have mosquitoes.
Yes, they do exist in some areas, but it is quite rare to see them.
They mainly exist around water and this is usually in the south of England.
Never in my life have I seen or been bitten by a mosquito in the UK.
So that shows you just how rare or uncommon that they are.
We also, in general, don't have air conditioning.
There's really no need.
It is a very useless item in the UK because I would say our weather is not good enough to justify so to have reasons for having air conditioning.
Like I said earlier, the summer never really gets hotter than about 25 degrees.
It's quite rare and it will usually just be one or two days.
A small example of how much British people appreciate when the weather is nicer is that usually, when the temperature reaches about 13 to 15 degrees Celsius, people start wearing shorts and t-shirts.
And I mean a lot of people.
So you'll see them with their sunglasses, their shorts, their t-shirts and even sometimes, sun cream.
So that is a cream that you put on your body to protect against sunburn and the sun.
I feel like in Russia, even when it was above 20 degrees Celsius, I still saw a lot of people wearing quite warm clothing.
So, long sleeve t-shirts, jackets, jeans and warm shoes as well.
This was quite strange to me, because in the UK people would think that this is amazing, incredibly warm weather.
One interesting fact about the UK is that people often wear less clothing.
So even in the winter months.
Some of my students have said to me that when they visited the UK in winter they were amazed at how little clothing children, for example, were wearing.
They weren't wearing heavy coats or hats or scarves or all of these things that you often see in Russia.
I think the reason for this is that at a young age, children aren't dressed very warmly, if I can say that.
So even our houses are not as warm.
So we don't use a lot of excess heating.
So the buildings aren't roasting, so they aren't extremely hot inside.
The reason for that is that the weather never gets extremely cold.
So, you know, it might sometimes get to minus five or even in some areas minus 10.
But usually winter will be around zero degrees and sometimes minus one or two.
Children grow up being quite used to the cold and I think in general the population feel a little bit warmer, a little bit more adapted or used to the colder climate than in countries like Russia, for example, which has extreme cold and much colder winters, where the weather could be dangerous if you didn't wear enough clothing, for example.
One student said to me that he was spending the night in a hotel in London and he thought the hotel room was so cold so he couldn't get to sleep at night, sleeping how he usually did in Russia.
And I explained to him that when the weather is cold at night time sometimes people use central heating so they heat their house.
But another common thing in the UK is that people will wear pyjamas when they sleep.
So they will wear slightly warmer clothing to bed and they will sometimes even wear bed socks.
So these are warm socks that help keep them warm.
Paying for a lot of heating in the house is quite expensive, especially if people have big houses, so they often prefer or sometimes as well as the heating wear these warmer clothes to bed.
Not only that, but British people really like dressing gowns.
So they will often wear these warm jackets almost.
So they are like a gown.
They will wear them to bed or sometimes in the morning.
And this can keep them warm whenever it is not very warm outside.
So when the weather is quite cold.
So I hope that this was interesting for you and maybe you learned a little bit more about summer in the UK, the weather, the climate, also in winter, and how people behave and react to different temperatures.
Thank you very much for listening and I look forward to chatting to you in the next episode of the podcast.
As always, you can check out my Instagram at English with Oliver, or my TikTok, which is also English, with Oliver.
Goodbye and have a wonderful day.
