(Makes mental note never to move to Leysdown-on-Sea.)
I do understand, having spent the first half of my life in towns in the south east and on the south coast (apart from 1981-2, when I went to work in a small rural town in W Germany - how inspired was that?)
And I'm probably just feeling pleased with myself at the moment because I extended the veg patch by digging over a piece of the lawn this time last week, in the hope that the rarely forecast frosts would break up the soil for the spring. The new bed froze that night and is still frozen right now, beyond anything I could have hoped for.
I think the two big problems you have are firstly, as you say, you need that easterly set-up down there, which meant that the once-in-a-century event of Dec 2010 was no big deal for you; and secondly I recall a post of yours where you described an easterly of the 1980s, when you were a kid, that delivered everything you described, including the joy of being genuinely cut off. The trouble is, being that age you don't appreciate at the time the good fortune of everything falling into place, just assuming that you'll have more chances to relish it in the future.
In Dec 2010 I was living a few miles south of Taunton, 100m asl at the foot of the Blackdowns. The girlfriend had moved out, taking the car with her (not that I've learnt to drive in any case), so the dog and I were properly cut off, the way you remembered from that 1980s winter. The lanes were impassable, owing either to drifts or the farmer having turned them into ice rinks by attempting to clear them. By Christmas Eve it was clear that said girlfriend wasn't going to be turning up with any Christmas cheer, so the dog and I set out on foot for a mile and a half across fields literally knee-deep in snow to Blagdon Hill Post Office for something to eat the next day.
As a year earlier I'd stupidly transferred the house to joint ownership, I'd had to sell it to give the girlfriend half the money, and I knew that in a few weeks I'd be moving out to my current gaff, a miserable 32m asl. So I knew then, as I followed the dog back through the trees creaking with snow, that this was epic, this was as good as it could ever get, this was the winter to savour. I remember spending half of Christmas Day just yelling with joy at the dog as she attempted to keep up with me sledging down the hill behind that house again and again.
And this was another illustration of the advantages of living in the sticks, because by Christmas this forum was dominated by the breakdown and winter being over (which it was), while out there on Christmas morning I was still able to open my curtains to this (note: genuine icicles!):
I think this is why I tend to be grateful and optimistic about any sort of cold on offer in winter now. Not only did December 2010 give me everything I could ever hope for, but a combination of circumstances meant I appreciated it to the full at the time. Anything else in subsequent years is just icing on the, er, icing. The moral is, if you live somewhere cold is rare, but some sort of cold does happen while you're an adult, do try and appreciate it and experience it at the time rather than looking for ways in which it's not the real thing or how it's going to end.
Easier said than done though.
2 miles west of Taunton, 32 m asl, where "milder air moving in from the west" becomes SNOWMAGEDDON.
Well, two or three times a decade it does, anyway.