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Seeking HOT

Seeking HOT By Deborah Gale a.k.a. Silicon Mum It's a bit late to be telling you this but you just missed it. The British weather forecasters got it right! The soothsayers of English weather started making these preposterously sunny predictions for us back during the mind-blowing floods of last winter. It was hard to take them seriously when the country was submerged. This was also when everyone was pointing fingers over that Dome debacle. The US presidency was still up for grabs, the dot.coms were sinking on the other side of the pond, a British general election was brewing and everyone was searching for some novel economic stimulus to get things moving here. Considerable attention was given to converting the entire island into an aquarium theme park, and calling it the Millennium Marina. Apparently Disney initially showed some interest but pulled out suddenly when Ariel, the Little Mermaid got her knickers in a twist over exclusivity. Hollywood is just so fickle. Just about this same time the papers were carrying reports about potential global warming impacts on England. I read that the Cornish coast would one-day mirror that of the French Riviera and the Thames Valley was destined to become a world-class wine-producing region. Dubious but thrilled, I thought about the two major reasons why I had originally moved to California: spectacular weather and equally exceptional wine. Now that both of these were due to blow into Blighty when the next layer of ozone disintegrated made me feel rather smug. Not only would I be able to enjoy everything about England that I adored, I could also look forward to predictable weather. I started marking off dates for outdoor wine tasting next summer while naughtily fantasized that California would have to adopt the climate of our little island paradise in exchange. The inescapable fact that we wouldn't even begin to feel or for that matter taste any of this for several centuries initially escaped me but that didn't stop us. We ignored the weather people. I wanted to go somewhere, make that anywhere that could guarantee hot. Despite the daily taunting by forecasters of a long scorcher just ahead we opted to join the hordes in a queue at Gatwick. Thankfully we did not choose Spain where several zillion tourists remain stranded at this writing after every form of mass transit decided to go on strike. When everywhere we tried to book was already overbooked we started to worry. There wasn't a gitte left in France or a villa left in Greece or Italy. It was the double whammy of Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the Blairs in Tuscany! Keen to please, the Brit took me literally on my hysterical, wintertime demand for guaranteed hot. Before I could say sunstroke we were booked for a week at the equator. How clever we were, leaving the very week that English summer temps broke 25-year records. The papers screamed, "STOP. Don't head for the Med!" But it was too late. Everyone was gone, leaving the countryside to the remaining cows and London to the Americans. They had arrived en masse on cheap charters pausing in the West End before heading to Ireland. Summer is high season for Americans in hot pursuit of finding a drop or two of Irish blood in the family tree and make things official in time for next St.Patrick’s Day. After our sunny days away, we returned to find extremely low temperatures. As we took our place in a new queue at Gatwick we would have had plenty of time to ditch our pareo's and flip flops for down jackets and sneakers, had we brought them. By the time our chariot arrived to return us to long term parking near Wales, all seven of us had bronchitis. We bought out the local pharmacy of all available drugs; cough sweets and mixtures thereby ensuring their Christmas bonus this year. I was suffering the worst and feeling that I needed to see a doctor, was told to book into the local surgery. I was quite sure I had a head cold, which in my experience would not require surgery. Following verbal examination by the doctor I joyfully left the surgery without stitches but with a list of further "mixtures" to procure at the pharmacy. I am becoming quite popular there. Fully recovered and raring for more, we joined the second largest queue outside of Gatwick and drove to Cornwall. With bags of time to do so, I became intrigued with the road signs. There was a series of signs indicating deer in the area. This in and of itself is not noteworthy but that they stretched for a period of exactly 43 miles and informed motorists of this fact at the 35 mile, 27 mile and all the way down to 2 1/2 miles is. How the deer know to stop exactly one mile before Swindon is anyone's guess. I mentioned this to my husband and his only comment was, lucky deer. Cornwall is seaside magic. Everything there seems perfectly preserved and the temptation to call it quaint is overwhelming, but somehow misses the point. Signs on the road to alert you to upcoming rumble strips actually say TRAFFIC CALMING AHEAD. Off the beaten path you travel on one-lane roads with two lanes of traffic inching past each other taking turns being imbedded in the hedge rows. I was particularly happy to see a yellow and black sign that implores everyone to BEWARE OF TRAFFIC. I felt this was sound advice. At our hotel there was a sign in the room directing us to TURN ACTIVE KETTLE AWAY FROM TV. Not really understanding why, I did as I was told. One can feel very safe knowing that these things have been taken care of in Cornwall. I don't care if the weather here really changes or not but I am already planning our return to the left coast of England, often and soon. About the author: Deborah S. Gale is a Pennsylvania native, loving mother of five daughters aged four to nine including two sets of twins. Married to a classically cynical, witty Brit with whom she enjoyed DINKY status briefly. She hasn’t held a full time bill paying or spa treatment-covering job since the children and spent most of the '90's as an expat. wife and mother in Paris and London. After 23 years of calling Silicon Valley home, she bid adieu to the South Bay in December 2000 when she made a permanent move back to the UK. This article is re-printed with kind permission from the American in Britain magazine for which Deborah writes a regular column.

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