The British and the Weather

After a few nights in lovely, seaside Santander I boarded a plane to London. I spent a night sleeping on a bench at Stanstead’s wonderfully shitty airport, and the next morning flew onwards to Glasgow to once again meet Thea, who featured in a previous email (with some of her lefty comrades from Oxford: The Tireless Crusaders for the Liberation of the People And the Victory of the Revolution Against the Imperialist Running Dogs).

I was pleased to notice that Glasgow airport offers travellers free copies of The Sun (whose current edition features a story entitled: ‘IT’S JUNGLE TIME! This year’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here official line-up is revealed- And there’s LOTS of potential for that famous Jungle shower’). I picked up a couple of copies for Thea and resolved to stop relying on brackets so much in my blogposts.

I was in Scotland to be whisked away to the cold and perhaps somewhat barren, but nonetheless charming and beautiful, Isle of Mull for a few days of sophisticated chat and wholesome activity with Thea, her family and her friend Hattie. There wasn’t a kebab in sight. After packing the car we drove across Scotland on a wet afternoon, had a cup of tea while waiting for the ferry, admired the illustrations on the thank you letter written to the tea shop by Class Six of the local primary school, crossed a couple of lightly choppy bays and arrived at our destination.

The house where we were staying was halfway up an open, empty glen of small waterfalls and streams, spongy bog and purple heather. As we turned into the driveway the late afternoon was turning to evening and the rain clouds were continuing their roll up the valley. The windows of the house glowed warm and yellow in the early evening of the northern summer.

Thea persuaded me that it was fine that I let them put away the groceries and, actually, you know what, why don’t you just have a shower and use lots of soap and make yourself comfortable. I hadn’t showered for a couple of days. What a splendid idea, I thought. That evening after dinner we reclined in the sitting room with the fire crackling and had wine and chocolates. There I was, in the company of people who ride horses and read George Elliot novels. These upper classes certainly know how to party, I smiled to myself as I patted my belly.

The next evening we drove around the isle to have a lobster dinner with some of their friends. As our car glided along the single lane road, the fields to our left fell away and across the water we could see a majestic set of cliffs, illuminated in the golden light of the sun on the horizon. The cliffs fell into the cold, stony Irish Sea and in the bewitching light the grass seemed to glow with extra greenness. The fluffy white sheep, the squat stone walls and the tidy little cottages all seemed to be in their right place. It seemed rather distant from the oppressive heat of Andalucia a week prior.

On Sunday the rain had returned but it was decided that we ought to climb a hill because it is much more productive than reclining and reading in the cosy warmth of the house. And because, let’s be honest, the British have always had a somewhat skewed relationship with their weather. Thea, Hattie and I were dropped off with Trevor, the dog, by a wet roadside, clad in coats and jumpers. As Thea and Hattie set out perkily I discovered a hole in one of my wellingtons (these people actually call them that, my god!). The other two confidently splashed through puddles and clambered over rocks while I followed them, skulking sulkily along.

After most of an hour of rehearsing what passive aggressive thing I would say when they asked how I was that would communicate both that I was having a miserable time but no, don’t feel sorry for me because I’m a brave, indefatigable soul, really, and I’m certainly facing adversity without feeling sorry for myself, we reached the saddle and the pile of rocks that people had put together to mark it (I gather there’s not much else to do in Scotland). We looked out at the magnificent view of impenetrable cloud. Well, this is a bit shit, I thought.

And then, as we stood, hands on hips, the clouds began to roll over us to reveal a most spectacular glacial valley. Far below us a burn ran down the valley and ended in a small loch surrounded by reeds. Well, I guess it’s not all shit, I sniffed to myself.

Halfway down the slope we stopped to sit on some rocks and eat our packed lunch. Further on, while we navigated a bog, I happened to have the good fortune of taking a video on my camera at the exact moment as Thea slipped, lost her balance and toppled over. The day was coming up roses.

After reaching the lake we walked along it on a gravel road while Trevor ran back and forth. Across the water was a beautiful stone house with a trimmed green lawn running right down to the waters’ edge. Then, as we reached the end of the road, our host from the night before arrived in a truck, just in time, to bring us to his house, warm us with tea and feed us biscuits. Well.

That afternoon George, our host’s son, took us out on the bay to take in some lobster pots. A sea eagle circled above the cliffs and seals eyed us with distrust and slipped into the water as our boat zipped across the sea, bouncing rhythmically over the slight rolling swell. We hooked the buoy’s with a pike and watched the pots emerge from the dark bottom as we dragged up the rope.

That evening I stood with Hattie on the jetty in a scene of utter tranquillity. The air was fresh and cold and the glassy inlet reflected the grey clouds above. I could smell seaweed. The only sounds were George and Thea splashing as they moored the boat and rowed an inflatable to shore. There were no swimming pools for me to cannonball into, unfortunately.

After a night in Edinburgh I took a dawn flight back South and spent another day in Stanstead, calculating how I could best spend the handful of British pounds Thea had left me with. The most efficient outlay was a bag of popcorn (though only the sweet variety was on special) which I followed with some chocolate. The chocolate meant I passed up a bottle of water so I would have to drink the warm water out of the taps in the bathrooms but it was a matter of principle, really.

After another night in Santander, I got up in the morning to take a bus the short distance along the coast to Bilbao.

As I sat in my seat looking out the window I felt kind of funny. I had been away for two and a half months. It was the end of my summer. The last time I had arrived in Bilbao I was arriving to stay with my friend Jake. It was my first time in Europe for eight years and I was excited to be living with one of my closest friends after a year in rural Bhutan. But in June Jake had crossed the Atlantic to get married and start a new life, and with him had gone my explicit reason for being in Bilbao.

Now I had a new job to start and a routine to establish. Mostly, though, I had to find what my reason was for being there. This listlessly played across my mind as the bus wound its way east through coastal towns towards Bilbao.