Lisbon Weather

When it comes to Lisbon weather - my personal jury is out. Most of January was pretty mild ... 16º or so most days. Now it's February, the weather has back pedalled. I spent most of yesterday being rained on or blown from one side of the road to the other.

And complaining voraciously.

This was taken at the Expo '98 site. A cold and dark Lisbon day. 

By nature I don't complain. I just silently steam. A few minutes of silently frothing is worth an hour of rowing with another. Complaining out loud gives those around you some kind of free licence to do one of two things:

• complain louder (which means they win, you lose)
• disgree with you (which means there is no winner. Unless you excercise the right to force them to talk to the hand. But then a whole new ball-game opens up ... the grudge one)

And so I spent much of the day whining like a baby and wearing gloves. Even indoors. When I do decide to give birth to my complaints I like to think I'm nothing if not giving 100%. So loud and whiny is called for, as well as various (appropriate) props.

I was cold so I wore layers - indoors and out. My Portuguese Man (PM) tried ignoring me but I'm too persistent. And let's face it, misery loves company so I doggedly harangued him until he either gave in or was in genuine agreement (not sure which it was).

I moaned about:

• the temperature drop
• the rain
• the fact that January is always colder than February
• the lack of brolly etiquette held by Lisboettas (trust me - they have none whatsoever)
• the lack of indoor heating (and no Portugal ... just because you don't have your own natural gas I'm not interested - it's not an excuse. Swallow your pride and buy it from Spain)
• being tired - which was nothing to do with the weather but I was on a roll

Suffice to say that today is just as cold as yesterday and I remain unimpressed. What I will be impressed with is a rise in the temperature, a distinct lack of the wet stuff and all Lisboettas hitherto banned from ever using an umbrella.

Another cold shot. No umbrellas inculded.

Or at least some kind of training introduced into the National Curriculum (here) that educates the good people of Portugal that:

1. your umbrella does not have to be big enough to cover a family of five
2. you have to give way to people that are walking sem guarda-chuva
3. you simply cannot expect to poke someones eye out and not have to deal with the consequences