Oh for a beaker full of the warm South...

Gill and I met forty years ago this summer. Since then, by my reckoning we have only spent 5 or 6 summer holidays in the UK, and the last time was 20 years ago, the year our youngest daughter was born. Consequently July and August in Britain is a foreign territory to us; I feel homesick, for the South! This feeling has been exacerbated by two things. Firstly the  last year's travels were a fantastic experience. A new place every few days, changing landscapes, sunny skies for the most part, new tastes, interesting  wines cultured and convivial cities... the routine of being back home was always going to be a bit deflating. This has been made worse by the fact that this summer, at least here stuck 1000 feet up in the Pennines, has lived up to the worst stereotype of a British August - wet, chilly, blustery and changeable.

Just as the Mid-West's tornado alley attracts local storm-chasing enthusiasts then Buxton's spectacularly appalling climate has developed a certain cult following who watch the enfolding meteorological catastrophe with a kind horrified fascination. They are able to do this due to the selfless dedication of local hero, Michael Hilton, who for more than a decade has documented in painstaking detail the months of drizzle, fog, sleet, blustery showers and arctic white-outs on his site. Not only does it contain a wealth of data, but links to local web-cams allows you to view the conditions in real time. It was curiously satisfying while stretched out next to the van on a sparkling blue day on the Costa del Sol in early February to be able to watch the poor sods back home picking their way gingerly through the Market Place's snowdrifts in sub-zero temperatures. Now though, it's less fun dodging about trying to miss the cold blustery showers that have kept us housebound for days. This was the Market Place about 10 minutes ago...

And if you are thinking that this dismal scene may be untypical, then a cursory look at last month's data will soon convince you that the adjudicators who awarded Buxton the runners-up prize in the 'Great Town' 2014 award must have arrived on last year's only sunny day. Unless the strap line on the town sign is in fact a typo, and it was in fact a competition to find the Greyest Town. So last month's stats, August 2015:

                                              Buxton                                               Bastia
Rainfall                                   65.4mm                                                nil
Sunshine hours                        114                                                       341
Average median temp.            12.99 celsius                                         25 celsius

Why the Corsican comparison? Because it's typical of where we buggered of to in the summer over the past 40 years. Retribution for snickering evilly at the miseries of a Pennine winter from Mediterranean climes is to end up to gazing longingly at a Corsican webcam while listening to the steady thrum of rain bouncing off the conservatory roof...

So what keeps us here? Well we have been looking at other places to live, in the west of England mainly - North Somerset, the Wye valley, but nowhere has jumped out - to say, this would be a great place settle in. The other side of the coin is that apart from the weather, Buxton is not that awful a place really. With Gill's Dad - now 91 - living on his own in the North East, the kids in London and Oxford, then Buxton is within a day's drive of both areas. Our house is nicely situated near the park. It has a stream running through a tract of ancient woodland at the bottom of the garden, and though the shade, wet and cold limits what we can grow, we have quite a nice aspect.

Gill, the Weber and the woods

Back in June, it was briefly warm enough to eat outdoors.

Nearby we have nice walks, like here on The Roaches:

There are five really excellent cycling trails within a half hour drive - Tissington, High Peak, Monsal Trail, Manifold Trail and Carsington Water.

On the Monsal trail at Hassop.

So, if it is mainly the Pennine weather that is getting us down, then we could move to South Derbyshire, around Ashbourne, and we've looked at that too. Do we downsize our house, and invest the collateral in an apartment that we could rent out to help fund the next six years until we can draw down our State pensions? If we did do that, then should we buy here, or in Spain?  Eventually there just seems to be too many choices and we stay put and spend hours on Google maps and Streetview planning our next trip. Gill comments from the kitchen, "I think we need to budget for a mid-August trip through the tunnel next year, we can't go on like this..."  She's right, we don't seem to be able to cope with vagaries of an English summer; we love living outdoors, but we're not 'outdoorsy'. Lunches of cheese sandwiches and a flask of tea huddled behind some dry stone wall is not our idea of fun. We want cultured Nature! A sublime view, but never more than a couple of kilometres from a really well made Lavazza. It is possible, rarely, to achieve that here... the coffee and lunch menu at Hassop old station is pretty good, if and when the weather manages to be remotely seasonable..

So, it's a toastie, not tapas... but the coffee is pretty good, and remakably it's not raining!

OK., lets accentuate the positive - the tunnel is booked for the 28th of THIS month, the ferry from Brindisi to Patras arranged for mid-October - "The Isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!" I think we'd better have a blast of Lord B...

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

There's nothing like a bit of overblown Byronic Romantic tosh to cheer-up dull, overcast Buxton afternoon, especially one where the outside thermometer is barely registering 12 degrees.