We are having more sunshine than I want at the moment. The joy of English weather is that it is constantly changing but with climate change we are getting more sun.

@CeliaVL Quite a lot of people are quite surprised at just how much sun we get, and how warm our climate is! I posted a question in the Singles trivia a few months back about how often it rains in London and a few people were surprised that Rome has more rain. Someone suggested that the amount of fog London gets gives the impression of constant rain, but when I looked up Met Office records even I was surprised by how little fog London actually gets.

@Jnei The idea of London fog is a hangover from the nineteenth century when everyone in London was burning coal. It's hard to dispel a national stereotype, though.

@CeliaVL Right through into the 1950s. My father, who was born in Pentonville (not the prison, as he likes to point out whenever he mentions it), remembers the Great Smog "pea souper" of 1952, which killed 4000 people in five days and another 8000 in the months afterwards.

@Jnei I didn't realise it had gone on that long. Right up until the clean air act, I suppose.

@CeliaVL The Clean Air Act (1956, I think) was inspired by the Great Smog. It's thought that more than 100,000 people were ill as a result of the pollution in 1952, which really makes you wonder how many died and were ill in Victorian times when nobody was really that bothered about the very poorest in society.