But alas I did have a faaaabulous time with faaaamily and friends in Newmarket, Cambridge, Nottingham and North, Central, South AND South West London town. It was my first British Summertime in three years and it did me proud with only one minor shower and plenty of pasty pins stalking around the place. I left the island in 90%+ humidity and torrential tropical downpour, so it was somewhat of a relief to experience summer not on steroids.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the upbeat spirit under UK skies. Relying only on the top line news that makes it across the pond, most of what I hear is doom and gloom about redundancies and interest rates, interspersed by the odd Royal wedding to lighten the mood. However, what I was warmly greeted with was a true sense of camaraderie and more union jacks flying high than I've seen in years. This perspective was helped along by my enjoyment of some thoroughly British pursuits - a spot of horse racing, watching some rowing from a pub garden, M&S underwear shopping, a BBQ in an English country garden, a picnic in a park, a drippy 99 complete with Flake, Soho, the Southbank, breakfast at the Wolseley and copious amounts of cider and Pimms on a sunny afternoon in Parsons Green to round it all off.
The atmosphere on the Southbank was particularly sparkly as for the Festival of Britain they had lined it with bunting and recreated the seaside with a few tonnes of sand and a fairground complete with helter skelter and candyfloss.
The only thing to dampen this summer splendour was the news of Amy Winehouse's death while I was in town. You either love her or hated her and loved her I did and my happy memories of catching her intimate Somerset House gig in 2008. But even that almost seemed like another symbol of the time of great excess lingering over from pre-credit crunch being put to rest to make room for this revival of Cool Britannia ignited by the countdown to the London 2012 Olympics.
That said, this account may have been slightly differently had my trip been scheduled a week later to coinicide with something entirely different being ignited all over London - riots. Nothing like a bit of anarchy as the archnemesis of the great and good in the land of hope and glory.
Everyone always asks me what I notice has changed after so long away and I have to say not much. What is always striking though is the amount of people that dissect the same place without colliding. Something you never notice till you spend most of your time on a relatively deserted island. When you are in the Big Smoke day in day out you develop some kind of inbuilt homing device to allow you to select the exact angle at which to cross a train station concourse and the conviction to stick to your chosen course no matter how big and burly the obstacles are that try to play "Chicken" with you along the way. The batteries in my own station survival SatNav are definitely dead. I couldn't count the times I said sorry for getting in people's way en route to my Gatwick Express train, it certainly wasn't the hardest word that morning.
One thing that is most definitely new is a piece of Turkish culture that has made its way to British shores - the fish pedicure. You may or may not be familiar with this concept but basically it is where you stick your feet and in a bucket of water containing tiny fish that nibble away the dead skin from your weary soles. The fish pedicure was everywhere I went - Newmarket high street, a shopping centre in Cambridge, a spa in Elveden Forest in deepest Suffolk. Everywhere and totally unexpected.
On arrival back to the island's airport I was disappointed not to be greeted by the usual steel pan musician. Sunday must be his night off. So what's new in the triangle?? Well we've got our own skin eating water life it appears - Sea Lice!! The talk on the BDA streets was all about how the annual Non-Mariners festivities (basically a big excuse to blag your way onto a boat, raft up to other boats, float and drink) was marred by the arrival of an outbreak of jellyfish larvae that get caught up in swimwear and sting like a bi-atch. Not quite as relaxing as being gently nibbled and exfoliated but we don't like to be left out from overseas trends.
Another international craze that has finally made it here in recent weeks is Planking (the art of being photographed imitating a plank in unusual situations in case you didn't know). The best I've seen so far on zee island is the planking on the statue of national hero, Johnny Barnes...
The Chief of Police was less enamoured to see a off duty police officer outed for planking on a police vehicle. He quickly issued a statement along the lines that despite appearances the police were busy on the streets of Bermuda trying to keep the public safe.
No time for planking for the Police in London this week that's for sure. Sad, sad times.
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