My thoughts this August, as with pretty well every August, are with those who take their holidays or attend special events in such a miserable month. In terms of poor weather, with the notable exception of 2018, August lets us down. 2019 looks as bad as it can get.
Bristol has its famed balloon fiesta this weekend, with thousands attendance at Ashton Court to watch the mass ascent and thousands more enjoying the view from around the city. Not, I fear, this year as the Bristol Post reports weather will be so bad this weekend that we will all die.
It’s the same picture elsewhere, not least in Newquay where the annual Boardmasters event has already been cancelled. Some fifty thousand youngsters attend Newquay for a weekend of overpriced revelling but storm warnings have already put an end to that. Even the relief of not having to sit through the dismal wailing of Florence and her Monotony Machine will be no compensation from those who were so looking forward to the festival. It will be the same everywhere.
For years, when the children were small, we would usually have an August week in Cornwall and for years the weather would be terrible. It would take forever to get there, we would spend a highly expensive week trudging through dreary ‘attractions’ and return home – yes, in the same gridlocked traffic – needing a holiday, but not one in the UK. I should have known better.
My mum and grandparents took me to West Bay in Dorset, and nowhere else, for a week in August most years and I cannot remember a single occasion where we got as far as the beach because of the driving rain. In fact, my memories are of splashing through the harbourside puddles to buy yet another burger and sitting in our tiny caravan wishing I was at home watching cartoon episodes of Superman.
I am sure the weather records do not back up my memories of poor weather. August is probably not wetter than any other month. It’s probably the hard-wiring in my brain that makes me think things were much worse than they were. Waking up today, with a battleship grey sky and rain battering on the bedroom window suggests I may not be that far out after all.
If your main summer holiday is in the UK in August and you were hoping for sunshine, my thoughts are with you. The unsettled weather is the price we pay for having such gorgeous countryside. I’m especially sorry if you have been waiting all year for a festival or a fiesta or anything else that will be ruined and/or cancelled this weekend. I suppose that if we want to add to our misery the old cliche that nobody died, I suppose it’s better safe than sorry.
