Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Chasing the cooler weather and wanting to see family and friends we finally departed our sunny sandpit for the green lush landscape of the West Country in the UK.
Many people picture spending their summer somewhere hot, foreign and exotic but for me that’s almost my day-to-day reality and instead I long for the green rolling hills of Somerset and Wales and the rugged coastline of the Cornish coast.
I long for fish ’n’ chips by the sea, cream teas with the grandparents and noisy days filled with love and laughter joined by friends and siblings.
After a very smooth journey to Heathrow and remarkably quiet roads to Cornwall, the benefit of travelling on a Sunday evening in the UK, after a four-hour drive we arrived at our first staycation.
When the children are only used to 20 minutes in the car in Bahrain, four hours can be a very long car journey. Remarkably, the sibling squabbles and calls of ‘are we there yet’ were minimal and we arrived at the grandparents home to a ‘light’ supper, which really was a momentous meal, and afterwards we all fell happily and exhausted into deep sleeps, with small, open windows replacing the automatic whirl of our normal AC.
The next morning I decided to take advantage of the cooler weather and attempt a run. Having had to run inside for the last few months I couldn’t wait to get out into the fresh English air.
In my excitement I completely underestimated the contours of the terrain. Only used to running in Bahrain, I have had little experience running up or down hills. The first of the many hills left me hopelessly out of breath and begging for it to stop. With the words: ‘what goes down must go up’ repeating in my head left me yearning for the flatter Bahrain landscape.
It always amazes me that in one summer day in the UK you can experience all four seasons. We have already surfed in blisteringly hot summer sunshine in the late morning and were then driven off the beach in the afternoon by torrential rain and gale force winds. Misty mornings can lead to the most beautiful of sunny afternoons, sunny mornings can often lead to wet and windy afternoons. But this is the nature of the beast and you can’t have the lush landscape without this varied weather.
And, there really is nothing like devouring fresh English strawberries and clotted cream whilst watching Federer claim his eighth Singles Wimbledon Title. Bliss.
