My not-so jolly British holiday
ALL the motorway bridges were displaying flashing signs. Yellow Warning: Heavy Rain. Caution: Surface Water.
We were on the M8 in Scotland in a rainstorm, so there was nothing unusual about that.
Still, as we aquaplaned past the exit to Renfrew, I took a picture through the windscreen from the passenger seat, on my phone, of the three words you most dread, when you have taken an executive decision to go on a staycation, and forced your three children to come with you rather than go somewhere lovely and sunny like Greece. ‘Heavy Rain Forecast’. I toyed with the idea of posting the smeary waterlogged image online, as an ironic riposte to those flooding my Instagram feed from friends lolling poolside in Mustique, France and Italy, but in the end couldn’t be bothered.
What would be fresh or clever in pointing out the first rule of most staycations; that wherever you go it will pour (it rained in Cornwall in the five days I was there in July) in spirit-lowering contrast to the Med or the Caribbean, basking in unbroken radiant sunshine?
I had tried to do my bit by staying on British soil. after the sacrifices so many have made for us in this pandemic, I made a promise I would not complain if the weather in Scotland was … Scottish. MY
OWn brother was flying the flag and taking a brief holiday in the UK, and, for once, I was doing what the PM ordered.
‘There are all sorts of fantastic destinations, the best in the world, I would say,’ he told the nation last Friday, if memory serves. ‘all my happiest holiday memories are of holiday vacations here in the UK, bucket-andspade jobs or whatever.’
I racked my brains to think which holidays he meant. The time it rained in Ireland or on Mull? Or one of the childhood summers in West Somerset, one of the wettest places in the kingdom? But I agreed with him in principle. You can’t beat Blighty!
I resolved to take it like tea from the pot: as it comes. I would not be like Larry, the furious eldest son in My Family and Other animals (who triggers the family’s move to sunsoaked Corfu from rainy Bournemouth by shouting: ‘Why do we stand this bloody climate? … what we need is sunshine!’).
after all, even the Queen is enjoying her own annual Scottish staycation, at Balmoral.
I hoped for the best, but I packed for the worst. The result is that my staycation required significantly more baggage than any foreign trip. While I like to boast I take only hand luggage to Greece (I’ve got it down to two bikinis, a Kindle and a kaftan), for this trip I packed as if going on an expedition to the north Pole, stuffing my Globe-Trotter trunk with waterproofs, jeans, walking boots …
Reader, this still didn’t prepare me for conditions on the west coast of Scotland … not up the glen or on the moor, or on the beach, but inside the house.
It was so cold that fires were lit at breakfast, I kept my coat on at all times, even in bed, and I had to crouch by the electric fire in my room to stay alive. and before you accuse me of being a softie southern townie, I grew up in a farmhouse so cold, one guest claimed that ‘in the night it snowed on my head’.
I’m afraid to report not all our efforts to support the local economy were successful; we tried to rent a boat, but the RIB place (as in rigid inflatable) had not emerged from lockdown, and when I tried to buy a windproof jersey in a large chandlery, empty but for two customers, I was told I couldn’t come in because of ‘regulations’.
Over breakfast, I asked a Glaswegian how he could stand it (he’d just informed me a heatwave in Scotland is defined as three days in a row that the mercury rises past 15 degrees).
as I write, I am looking out over the River Clyde, the rain is lashing down, and the hills are so green and lush I have to shield my eyes.
So yes, it is all the above and so are many glorious parts of the British Isles, but all I can think is this: if it’s alright with everyone else, I’d like to do a Durrell and pack up and go to Greece.
and if anyone suggests another patriotic staycation next year, they can take a hike.