Wednesday, March 27, 2013

wherever brits go the weather follows

My little bachelor crawled home yesterday after his 3 day Stagathon, with pink nail polish emblazoned across his hands and feet.

Apparently they dressed him up like a ballerina, with tutus and other pretty accessories. Which means, while I was running around being a man, he was running around being a girl.

We were made for each other. Yin and yang baby, yin and yang.

And now, as I write, he's off to Vegas. For work. He'll be managing a giant project out there, and I'm vexed.

He's going to Vegas a month before our wedding. It's one month today until our nuptials. What if he gets lost roaming the desert? Or is accosted by Vegassy wiles?

He's away for 10 whole days, over Easter, and I'm a bit depressed to be fair.

You might've seen the weather reports coming out of England at the moment. For once, the media isn't lying. This is. Literally. The coldest place on Earth. Right now.

We are all preparing for a white Easter. It's just relentlessly cold, with wind chills of -6, snow blasts and gloominess just raging on. Threatening to break the spirit of even the most Arctic viking.
Most winters here are hard to face for a South African, but this one has really been brutal. For two reasons.

1) It's the first winter I've had that has been unbroken by any kind of travel or reprieve that involves a smidgen of sun.

2) Usually, by end of March - which is now - spring is out. It's not snowing, it's not fucking Baltic, and everyone is starting to feel like the tide has turned. But this year it hasn't stopped. It's getting colder and more miserable.

So I'm suffering. And for someone who wants to see 100 countries before she dies, it's been hard not being able to do this for the last few months. I haven't left Britain since the end of November. Perhaps normal for most people, but definitely not for me.

So on a whim, I thought of something. The Brit is away for Easter and I don't have a Schengen visa, nor can I spend uber amounts on going away. So I thought,

"Hey! Why don't I go to GIBRALTAR, dog?"

GIBRALTAR is that little piece of coast, jutting out at the bottom of Spain, that actually belongs to the UK.  No visa hassles! It's close! It has a rock I could climb!

So I checked the weather forecast.

OK. So also fucking cold and rainy over Easter. What is it about British places?

I can't go anywhere else in Europe - bar Turkey which is too far for a quick break - and Ireland which is 8000 times worse than England for weather.

Great. How about the Channel Islands? They are always boasting on the telly about "being the sunniest parts of Britain" after all.

No dice.

AArGHGHGAH.

So then someone came up with a very clever suggestion. Pack it in and go for a SPA BREAK.

Now you're talking my language. That dude is a genius. Spa breaks are,like, the best things ever. I could get all exfoliated and seaweed-wrapped and facialed and massaged to buggery.

All in a day's work, in a pretty place in the English countryside. Get out of the city and head to the hills. Just to get out of London would be ace.

Well I found an awesome one. Which is in Kent.
When I say 'Kent,' I actually mean Dover. The white cliffs thereof. Closest point to France, so while I can't actually go to France, I can at least see it from the hotel. It's a two hour train ride, so it's not that far.
(In British terms, a two hour train ride is, "Fucking miles away. Why would you do that?" But I know better.)

Frankly, I'm frightfully chuffed. It'll be raining, sure, but I'll be inside, wearing a terry cloth robe and slippers, being pampered.

Take that, Gibraltar.

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