A Crafty Traveler | Family and Travel Adventures

An alternative title for this post could be Summer 2012, You Suck! Not to be too melodramatic, or anything.

Today is August 29th and today I wore boots to work. Boots! In August. This is, quite frankly, unacceptable to me. August is a month for flip-flops and beaches, not sweaters and closed-toe footwear.

The summer of 2012 has already been crowned with the lamentable accolade of the wettest summer on record. It has seemed as though the rain has just never stopped, falling incessantly for months on end. In the UK we have endured rain of biblical proportions, with floods ravaging towns from north to south, causing land slides and bridge collapses all over the country. It’s not even necessary to exaggerate to make this summer’s weather sound worse than it has been, it has done that all on its own.

Word has it that a pesky jet stream has managed to get itself lost somewhere up there in the stratosphere, causing all kinds of upset to the regular order of things. Regardless of the scientific explanation for the crap weather phenomenon, I don’t really care. Whether its jet streams or giants in the sky, it doesn’t matter to me. All I want is a little bit of sunshine and heat on my skin before we are fully gripped by autumn weather.

The problem that I have is that this summer has really not seemed much worse than any of the other ones I have spent in the UK. I arrived in England for the first time in July of 2010, eager to spend the summer exploring my new home and settling into life abroad. Instead I was met with what I considered unseasonably cold and wet weather (which came along with man-sized slugs, I might add). Everyone I met that year seemed to also find the weather particularly unsavoury, so I knew it wasn’t simply that I was a sensitive Canadian who couldn’t handle the characteristically unstable English weather.

Summer 2011 continued in much the same vein – cool, wet, short, and slug filled. I began to wonder if maybe I just had the misfortune to be in the country for two kinda crappy summers.

Now I know for sure though, the myth of the great British summer is just that, a myth.

Maybe at one time Britain did get lovely warm summers and people were able to spend their time laying in the sun and splashing in the waves, but those days are long gone. Don’t just take my opinion, I have scientific data to back up my thesis! According to the MET Office the average amount of rain falling in the UK is increasing, and by as much as 10% when comparing data for July between data set from 1981–2010 with 1971–2000. Yes, yes, this has all gotten a little technical but I feel the need to make you understand that I’m not just ranting for the sake of it, the weather here does actually suck!

So what does one do when presented with information such as this? Well, if you’re me you plan a trip to somewhere that the prospects of warm weather is considerably better. For me this will be Portugal. The sun, the sand, the sea …… oh, it’s heaven! It’s also the only thing keeping me sane as I look out my window at yet another rainy evening.

What dream destination do you fantasize about on cold and rainy summer days?