While Europe has been sweltering in a blazing hot summer my part of England has barely reached 'take your coat off' weather.
It's just as well. We Brits don't really handle hot weather well. We're not used to it so we are never prepared. We are fine abroad because we have packed our swimming cossies, the high factor sun cream and the floppy sun hats. In England, though, it's a different story.
We wake up to a rare sunny day. "To the beach!" we cry. We rouse the kids and gather everything we need for a day out. Flip-flops, sun glasses, sun cream, etc are, of course, right at the back of a cupboard somewhere. We forget where because they are needed so rarely.
We hastily prepare sandwiches after cutting the mould off the cheese, make a Thermos of tea, gather a few Penguin biscuits and call it a picnic. We eventually reach the beach after sweltering in a traffic jam for ages because everyone else has had the same idea.
After claiming a few square feet of sand we lie down and watch the kids as they go paddling. Then it's time for that picnic. After scraping the sand out of the cheese sarnies, we unwrap the Penguin biscuits - or we try to, the wrappers having stuck to the melted chocolate.
The suddenly, the skies cloud over and we make a wild dash back to the car to avoid the coming rain. Even so, we head home, convinced we've had the best day ever.
To my friends across the world:
This is what it is like in the UK when the sun shines for longer than a couple of hours!
Look at this:
Here's her other book: Not So Sweet Toffee
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Oh, you should see Pacific Coast Highway on a Saturday when it's hot. The lines of people trying to get into the parking near the beach is huge.
ReplyDeleteWe have beach weather a lot more often and on really hot days the sand is packed full of people like sardines in a can, try finding a place for a picnic then! Some people live close enough to just walk to the beach and go home for lunch before heading back.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned swimming this morning and, funny enough, they're having a problem with the heater. Doing laps in 74 degree (Fahrenheit) water reminded me of long summer days at the lake with my first love. Ah, memories of youth. Thank you for the giggles.
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