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Published: July 25th 2010
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Its a fallacy to say that it does naught but rain in the UK. This is of course not the case-it's only true on most occasions! But on those rare days when the sun does shine and the sky is blue, England for me becomes a bewitching place of sparkling beauty. It just doesn't happen quite often enough for my liking! The other truly annoying thing is that even on those occasions when the sun does shine, there's often no opportunity to enjoy it as one is caught up with everyday commitments and isn't at liberty to declare a personal holiday simply to go outside and dance in the sunlight. I've spent many a weekday staring out the window from my desk willing some sudden announcement that work today is cancelled and everyone must leave immediately. To date, it's yet to happen but I remain ever hopeful!
It makes it all the more miraculous then when sparkling days fall on the weekend. We've only had a handful of such days in the past few years when this miracle has occurred on a Saturday and we've been able to truly embrace the gorgeous British summer. I know immediately that anyone from
Australia reading this entry will not understand this miracle I speak of. On my first visit back to Australia, having been away for 14 months, what struck me most about my homeland was the amazing brightness of the sun and the blueness of the sky. I kept saying to all my loved ones 'it's so blue here!' and they kept smiling and nodding 'uh huh', probably privately wondering if I was quietly going mad. But any Aussie ex-pat who has spent some time living in the UK will understand exactly what I mean and empathise with my excitement. The quality of the light and the height of the sky, it's just different here in Britain. It's not even that it rains so often, it's more that the sky is so often grey and washed out, the landscape devoid of the full colour spectrum.
Our flatmate Alex, who is German, has some sense of our longing for a day that is dazzlingly blue. Having lived in the UK since 2007, he too suffered through the first rainy endless summer and the follow-up in 2008, less wet but still too far from warm to actually qualify as summer in my book.
But being from Germany, Alex is more accustomed to the shades of grey and darkness that winter brings and is more tolerant of the falling temperatures. He becomes less frustrated by days that are light for less than 5 hours and nights that are so cold that frostbite is a real risk for any exposed body part. But Germans too know the feeling that comes from being outside in sunshine under an endlessly blue sky. Summers on the continent are far less variable than in Britain and one is almost guaranteed a good percentage of sunshine and blue skies. He therefore joined us in seizing one of those rare summer-esque days last year where we all bundled up and headed to Whitby, a fishing hamlet on the east coast famed for the remains of a once splendid cathedral. Whitby was the first I'd really seen of the British coastline and I confess I was quite disappointed at the beach. When I'd heard it was sand, I immediately conjured up images of long straits of yellow sand. Obviously this was a clear transference of my Australian beach experience and it was arriving into Whitby that I understood for the first time
why it is commonly accepted Australia has the best beaches in the world. I couldn't help but sigh as soon as I'd seen the beach on offer here. While sandy, it was a dark sand and the strip of actual sand was narrow to say the least. Still though, it was sand and I was pleased to see it, though I confess I was far more charmed by the colourful beach huts lining the coast. They definitely are enough to bring a smile to anyone's face.
More recently though, we celebrated such a day which not only was sunny, but was warm too! Last Saturday was one of those rarest of days when the sun is high in the sky, the sky is a perfect blue and there is enough warmth in the light that one feels immediately like heading to the seaside. I woke up, saw the glorious day outside my window, and immediately beseeched Adam to drive to the coast. He needed little persuading-so rare are such days they must be seized! And so humming all the way, a mixture of 'Oh I do like to be beside the sea side, Oh I do like to be
beside the sea...'and 'Are you going to Scarborough fair?'...we made our way 80 minutes east to one of Britain's favourite seaside localities.
Scarborough is the quintessential seaside resort town. It is complete with amusement arcades, merry-go-rounds and a Ferris wheel sitting beside the sandy beach, complete with even more colourful beach huts than those adorning Whitby's coast. In true British fashion, we joined the hoards of others in enjoying fish and chips on the beach, digging our toes into the warm yellow sand and marvelling that such a day as this has come our way.
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