Travellers Tips - Best of British

It's funny that the meteorological term best known to the British layman is 'a depression'. Given that depressions characterize so much of our weather, even a forecaster might think that's fair enough, and rather appropriate too. We all know the familiar welcome that greets us when we return from whatever sunny paradise we've been visiting. You board the plane in bright sunshine and fly home through peerless blue skies. Then, as you approach home, the plane descends through a thick carpet of cloud; underneath it's all unceasing grey and drizzle and you'd never know the blue was up there.

Unceasing grey and drizzle? Yet monotonous is exactly what British weather isn't. We have the pure, blind luck to live in a maritime climate which never stops surprising. More than one maritime climate, in fact, as four of the six major air streams that dictate our weather are Maritime - namely Arctic, Polar, Tropical and Returning Polar. Add to that the two Continental air streams - Polar and Tropical - and it's a complex, volatile picture. No wonder that we have such a highly developed forecasting network. And no wonder that we're a nation of obsessives: where else would tens of thousands of people tune into the shipping forecast for pleasure?

It all makes travelling around Britain a risky business. A romantic weekend in the Lake District can be a wash-out and Brighton isn't much fun in the pouring rain. The trick is to be flexible in when you go: wait until there's a nice stable weather system - high pressure is generally A Good Thing - before heading off for that weekend. Of course, this tip doesn't hold good for Bank Holidays.

Or be prepared to move around. The west of England, Wales and the Western Highlands have some of Britain's finest scenery (partly because of all the rain that falls there) but they receive a frighteningly high proportion of the rainfall, particularly in mountain areas. When it's pelting it down in Skye's Cuillin mountains, as it so often is, it can be dry and sunny over the Cairngorms, in the east. Get in your car and drive. The same tip even works locally. They say that there's a 'blue hole' over Crickhowell, in south Wales's Black Mountains, so if it's just not working in Abergavenny, try a little further down the Usk Valley. As always in travel, 'seek local advice'.

Travel Tips: Travelling around Britain
Maybe the best tip of all is to try and grow a thick, or at least impermeable, skin. You'll get wet and chillly travelling around Britain, but you're never far from a bath (or a bar) and rain tends to come in showers rather than non-stop. Shakespeare was thinking of desert isles when he wrote The Tempest, but the sentiment could just as well stand for the British Isles:
Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.