My interest in meteorology as a hobby started as early as the age of 4, but didn't really take off until 1993 when I started taking weather records. My first memory of a significant weather event was a snowstorm in early 1991 which gave very deep snow, and I assume that this was the result of that easterly spell around 7-10 February. The snowy North East winter of 1993/94, and the frequent interesting weather of the year 1995, helped encourage my interest. Another factor was the BBC TV forecasts of 1995-2000- those strongly helped to develop and broaden my interest. This was in the days when synoptic analysis was frequent, and heavy use of subjectivity like "bright but cold today but improving for tomorrow when it will be dull and drizzly but at least it will be mild" was rare.
Preferred Weather
Like many people I enjoy sunshine, and welcome spells of sunny weather at all times of year. I am also a fan of convective precipitation (the stuff that falls from cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds) as it can be very dramatic and is often associated with frequent and unpredictable changes of weather. I find thunderstorms exciting and awe-inspiring, and am also something of a snow nut- wherever feasible I will be observing keenly when there's a chance of some wintry precipitation.
I also have a strong preference for "episodic" months with frequent changes of weather pattern and temperature switch-arounds between warm and cold. This applies all year around but especially outside of the summer months (in summer most cold weather tends to be cloudy and wet, which puts me off it). Months dominated by the same type of weather and similar synoptics throughout tend to get boring after a while, which is why unlike many of the people over at Net-Weather I am no fan of homogeneously warm springs.
Best Places for Exciting Weather
Trevor Harley has his own analysis here and concludes that south-east Scotland may be the least exciting area for weather, and that south-east England is the most exciting. To be honest, his views are not a lot different to mine.
I don't think Cleadon is one of the most exciting places in the country for weather. Thunderstorms are infrequent, convective activity is relatively rare, and summers are moderated heat and sunshine wise by both the Atlantic and by the North Sea. It is often difficult to sit out for long in the evenings because there is usually a cold wind of some description. However, to be fair, much of eastern Scotland fares even worse from all of those perspectives, and Cleadon does get some pretty intense convection from northerlies and easterlies in winter- plus relatively sunny autumns and winters and a fair amount of snow.
I am put off from inland parts of south-east England because they get an even lower frequency of convective "sunshine and showers" type days than Cleadon. This may sound counter-intuitive considering that they get a lot of thunderstorms, but this is because what convective activity they do get tends to be intense. Norwich gets my vote as the most exciting place for weather. It is something of a thunderstorm hotspot, gets relatively frequent sunshine-and-showers days (showers have a habit of developing as they head east over Norfolk), gets pretty hot and sunny at times in the summer, and it also gets the same sort of dramatic "thundery wintry showers" from northerly and easterly flows in winter as Cleadon does. It is also far enough inland to escape most of the tempering effects of the North Sea. In my experience it also gets some pretty good sunsets.
The least exciting? I suggest the coastal strip of Fife- perhaps somewhere near RAF Leuchars.