We have just had a Bank Holiday in the UK. This is usually a signal for all air traffic controllers to go on strike, ditto cabin crew, extra road works to take place just when everyone is getting in their car and hopping off to the coast, and, naturally, thunderstorms and rain.
Well none of this seems to have happened. All is well on the plane front, nobody is complaining and the sun is shining. OK pretty sure the traffic was awful but I always think that anybody attempting to drive anywhere on a public holiday is asking for trouble. For years I have adopted a Stay at Home policy at these times and it has worked out well.
There is a wonderful passage in Three Men in a Boat when Jerome K Jerome and his friends stay indoors in the blazing hot sunshine of a holiday laughing with glee at the thought of all the idiots out in it getting caught in the inevitable thunderstorm. Of course, it never happens so next day they decide to go out and yes, you have guessed it, get caught in the rain and come down with raging colds.
The weather is like that in the UK. It likes to catch you out, to ruin your day and to beat you into submission. BUT and this is the important but, when it is right and the sun shines and you are out and by the seaside then really it is worth it. I have just spent a couple of days in Aldburgh with the family and my grandchildren and the weather has been glorious. I spent a happy hour sitting with Florence and Beatrice on the edge of the sea just chatting while we learnedly expounded on how many pebbles there were on the beach (Aldeburgh is not sandy). We decided we did not know and then Beatrice suggested we Googled it (in my day we looked it up in the Encyclopeadia Britannica) but I said I was not sure even they would know.
I love Aldeburgh and Orford and that stretch of the East Coast. It is wild and rugged at times and in the winter can be bleak and slightly awe inspiring but I find it endlessly fascinating.
There is a superb fish and chip shop in the High Street which has won numerous awards and, yes, it is terrific and always has queues. It opens at 12 pm. There were queues at 11 am with visitors waiting patiently for an hour or more in the baking hot sun to get their lunch. I find this baffling. It was a glorious sunny day and those queuing were wasting over an hour or more waiting to buy fish and chips.
Why not spend that hour or so on the beach looking out at the glorious sea and enjoying the sunshine and, shock horror, eat a sandwich? Bring a picnic?
The British are funny sometimes……
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