How Great is the British Summer? 💌

Notes on eating ice cream in the rain.

Barcelona in August is hazy. The air is hazy, brains are hazy, and the temptation of a sunny aperitivo means that the collective blood alcohol level is also quite hazy from about 10am 2pm onwards. 

The hot weather has hypnotised every inhabitant of the city from people to pets (sadly not the pesky mosquitos who are absolutely THRIVING) into a drifting, dreamlike state. It permeates through my apartment, and it’s palpable the second I walk out of the door. 

I’m not here to gloat about the heat; for a Brit with ginger genes it’s pretty intense. Drastic measures have been taken and I’m happy to announce that I’m in a new, committed relationship with a portable AC unit. We’re in the early throes of love and since the day it arrived, it’s yet to leave my side. I can hear and feel it merrily whirring away as I type, keeping my body temperature and brain capacity at something resembling human. It’s too early to call it for definite, but this tower of plastic and recirculated air is tipped to be in my Top 3 Purchases of 2024. 

And I’m not the only one who’s feeling it. So well-versed are the locals to this yearly sweat fest that large numbers of residents undertake their annual exodus for the guts of the month, escaping to less crowded, less humid air. Much like we did as kids before low-cost air travel and TikTok destination guides existed, Spaniards tend to holiday in their own country. Something to do with the guaranteed sunshine, beautiful landscapes, delicious seafood and rich culture, IDK…

But in defence of the UK’s altogether cooler average climate, despite hitting 16 countries in 18 months after I packed up my life at 34 to find myself a new home, some of my favourite ‘travel’ memories are from those British summer holidays back in the 90s, when my platform shoes were from Tammy Girl, my hair was crimped and my pet was an electronic revolution known as a Tamagotchi. 

Our family of five would pack what felt like our whole house into the car, us kids at peak levels of boisterous and excitable, at least until it was time to complete the Tetris puzzle that was fitting the suitcases into the boot when we knew to stay quiet as Mum and Dad reached the pinnacle of pre-holiday stress; final tasks not yet completed and the dutiful ‘adventure’ of five hours of holiday traffic with three kids in the backseat upon them. But eventually, once the boot had finally succumbed to being squeezed shut and the house windows and doors had been checked for the fourth and final time, we’d set off down the A303, cassette Walkman (me), Gameboy (brother #1) and fresh deck of Top Trumps (brother #2) in hand.

Our destination was a static caravan park in Devon where, in contrast to Spain, the sunshine was pretty much guaranteed to disappear, the sea would be cold and sunscreen would be token. Ice cream would be pleaded for come rain or shine, and on more blustery years our knees would knock together at the seafront of the local port town while we licked the drips that fell from the cones, dodging seagulls and shivering come nightfall - Mum having sensed which of us three kids was about to hit yet another growth spurt and making sure we got an acceptable amount of wear out of our summer shorts before they were patched up and passed on. Poor Dad’s patience would finally hit its limit by the 50th play of ‘Agadoo’ from the Haven Holidays All Stars mixtape that we insisted on playing on loop in the car wherever we went. 

But… he joined our kickabout every morning on the grass patch outside the caravan, distracting us while Mum tried to sift out swimwear for all three kids from those meticulously packed cases, making sure no-one was missing so much as a sock or a pair of goggles from our day bags. She would laugh when we complained about the sand in our ‘bits’, Dad would laugh when we’d kick the ball onto the neighbouring caravan’s roof. We were allowed fizzy drinks every night and dessert every day. We fought over mini boxes of cereal for breakfast and raced up climbing frames to see who could reach the top first; its apex looming large above this relatively tiny, wide-eyed child, watching in awe as my big brother scaled it like Spiderman.

If you’d told me me the dated, tired on-site swimming pool was Disneyworld I probably would have believed you, such was the amount of joy I got from launching myself down the same waterslide for three hours on repeat, learning to dodge floating plasters like some kind of Olympic sport. Being given 60p in the arcade was enough to make me feel like a millionaire on those 2p slot machines, and I’d be transfixed by the churning coins day after day. Dad relaxed without his briefcase. Mum relaxed without an endless cycle of packed lunches to make.

They were naturally sceptical of ‘tourist tat’, but I remember one year we persuaded them to get an inflatable dinghy for the choppy sea. Dad spent hours and about 90% of his lung capacity blowing the thing up, only for us to abandon it an hour later in pursuit of building sandcastles instead. I spent my evenings following dance routines from the aforementioned ‘All Stars’ - teenagers who had taken a summer filler job with dreams of heading to performing arts college. There was an adult-sized tiger mascot, which through my adult lens I’m pretty sure contained another teenager in varying states of hungover depending on the day, no doubt questioning his life choices through the synthetic fibres as shrieking children of varying ages clung onto his legs. 

Time slowed down. The sea air never smelt so good. Fish and chips never tasted so good. ‘Agadoo’ never sounded so good. 

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Back to present day Barcelona. Everything from estate agents to hairdressers to banks to the less touristic restaurants currently have notes of varying legibility scrawled across their closed doors. I love how unofficially official it all is, this inherent understanding that for 31 days it’s more than likely that emails won’t be replied to, calls won’t be answered and things just won’t get done.

This unapologetic claiming of downtime when the kids are free and the temperatures are not conducive to productivity is on of the ever-growing list of things that I love about Spanish culture. Said list also includes never buying a coffee to takeaway, random street parties just because, a lunchtime glass of wine being entirely acceptable on any and every day of the week, and the popularity of tinned fish as an everyday speciality. I’m partial to both anchovies and sardines, for the record. 

So despite my utter enchantment for the country I’ve moved to, two weeks ago, when I was back in the UK for a wedding on an uncharacteristically sunny weekend, I was surprised to catch myself wondering what it would be like to move back - the first pang of ‘missing’ I’d had since I left in 2021. Granted, a three-day, sun-filled, love-filled weekend is not day-to-day life. Nevertheless there was something about the sniff of a British summer that got me, and sitting in the back of my friend’s car as we travelled back to Hampshire, I recalled those long car journeys and those weeks by the water as a kid who loved to chase her brothers while our parents did their best to stay sane as they kept us all entertained, fed and happy. 

It wasn’t 30 degree temperatures that had caused those memories to lodge themselves in the back of my brain so clearly. Rather, despite the intermittent blue sky and lack of crystal clear water, they were rare times in our incredibly structured lives when the concept of time didn’t really matter. When life was to be sampled, savoured and abundantly enjoyed - colourfully and hazily.

Which is precisely the view taken by our Iberian neighbours, who are currently residing by the coast doing exactly that. 

I was a teenager before we started boarding planes for that yearly holiday. It was Spain, specifically Menorca, that was chosen as the destination of choice to replace those Devonshire caravans, and my predilection for endless blue skies, outdoor pools, al fresco dining and seafood was born #bratnotbrat.

Although those earlier British Summers contained none of the above, I was reminded last week, as we travelled from West to East - after a few days of fun, making hazy memories in a hazy space where time didn’t really matter - that they were indeed, Great.