But the practice is very unlike the theory in this case, and people thrive where they ought to die.
During my first winter in Canterbury we had only one week of _really_ bad weather, but I felt at that time as if I had never realized before what bad weather meant.

A true "sou'-wester" was blowing from the first to the second Monday in that July, without one moment's lull.

The bitter, furious blast swept down the mountain gorges, driving sheets of blinding rain in a dense wall before it.

Now and then the rain turned into large snow-flakes, or the wind rose into such a hurricane that the falling water appeared to be flashing over the drenched earth without actually touching it.

Indoors we could hardly hear ourselves speak for the noise of the wind and rain against the shingle roof.