from The Ecologist, July 2000
It was when he looked up, halfway across the slope, that it first hit him. An icy blast of wind from the Arctic swirled down the hillside and froze the skin on his face. He grimaced, hunched his shoulders, and trudged on.
Leo had been planning this walk for weeks, and was not about to let a cold breeze put him off. Besides, a bitter wind chill factor was not exactly a surprise in Scottish summers these days. At least, not since the Gulf Stream stopped washing the shores of northern Europe with the warm waters of the Caribbean thirteen years ago.