As soon as the temperatures start to rise in Britain, you know one thing for sure. The media in general, but the red top newspapers in particular, will inform us that it’s hotter than Greece. If it’s not hotter than Greece, it will be hotter than Spain. Today, the failing Bristol Post/Live tells us that it’s hotter than Turkey. For one day only, we can stick it up Johnny Foreigner. Tomorrow, however? Not so much. But really. Who are they – we – kidding? Living in what experts refer to as a ‘temperate maritime climate‘, a meteorological blip like a single day when we sizzle more than Skiathos or Seville fools no one.
Part of me wishes that my beloved Bristol was hotter than Greece/Spain/Turkey because I do love and prefer the warmer weather. That’s why I always try to go somewhere warmer at least once a year and always avoid going somewhere colder. The very idea of going skiing, for example, appals me and that’s without the likely ankle/leg/back-breaking fun and games you can have on the slopes. To be fair, though, even if snow was a product of hot weather, I’d avoid it in the same way as I avoid clichés: like the plague.
There was a time when I would have merrily emigrated to somewhere warmer. For decades, I went to the Greek island of Corfu and pondered the idea of cashing up my chips and investing in a quiet place somewhere by the sea. The summer is mainly hot and sunny, spring and autumn less hot and showery and winter, well, wet, but usually warmer than here. Indeed, I know a good few people who have taken the plunge and now live blissfully happy lives under the Ionian skies. After some consideration, but not that much, I decided against.
Thanks to modern technology and affordable flights, the world is much smaller than it used to be so if I wanted to slink off to, say, a Greek idyll, I could come back and visit friends and family as often as I liked. Many parts of Spain are even easier. But, inevitably, it all got more complicated for me. I have spent a lifetime living apart from many parts of my family and I don’t like it. I’ll go for years without seeing people, which as I get older and nearer to the time when I’ll be too dead to travel doesn’t feel great. But my reasons for sticking with this temperate maritime climate are even more sad than that.
I’d miss daft things like being able to drink fresh water from a tap and, unlike Greece, being able to put toilet paper down the toilet. I’d miss Sainsbury’s, HMV, book shops, a double sausage and egg McMuffin, pubs with real beer, access to a wide variety of cheese and always being able to go home to my house just north of Bristol after whatever it is I’ve been doing. I like watching the village football and cricket teams and I love the variety of golf courses around me. In short, no matter how broken this country is, there’s still more than enough to keep me here.
Gazing out from my Man Cave, the skies are glorious blue, there isn’t a cloud in the sky and later on it may be warmer than somewhere that’s normally warmer than it is here. And if in a few weeks time, Bristol is hotter than Formentera, where I shall be grilling my lily-white flab, well, who cares?
