Today, it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK where people traditionally will go out for the day with their family etc.
Do our fellow Europeans do pretty much the same thing on their public holidays?
Only if we fancy being sat in a 3 hr queue of traffic to take a trip to the coast that would normally take 45 minutes, then spend another 45 minutes trying to find a parking spot, followed by a 30 minute queue for a drink and some fish and chips - nope, going tomorrow
Half the UK population join the traffic jam to get to the beach, where it inevitably rains. The other half get the sudden urge to attempt some D.I.Y. that they’ve spent the best part of a year putting off. Also in the rain.
There is the pressure to arrange a BBQ for family and friends because it’s the last bank holiday of the “summer” and there won’t be another chance until next year … and then it rains and every thing gets soggy…
No in the whole of the UK, I am in the Scottish Borders and it’s a working day and the schools went back 2 weeks ago. So it’s blissfully fairly empty at the moment.
@Chrissy
But do you spend BH doing DIY, coastal trips like the vast majority of us though?
Wow, Chrissy this is so beautiful. Are you on a sit or are you from Scotland or both? My present sit is coming to a close and my next stop is Scotland. I have English and Scottish heritage. My great grandfather immigrated from Edinburgh to Winnipeg Canada in approx 1911.
Hence, I Scottish dance competitively my whole child/teenage years.
I am really looking forward to arriving there, and experience the mystical and magical land. I would love to know where abouts these glorious castles are… but my thought is they are everywhere… Thank you for sharing your post. It made my smile and a little heart pitter patter kinda of day. Cheers, Debra
I’m a sitter and in the Scottish Borders at the moment. I came last year, different sit, and there was so much to do I came back. You can also use the Borders railway to get into Edinburgh very easily. I do have my car but you don’t have to go very far to visit things. Floors castle is at Kelso where there is an Abbey and Sir Walter Scott’s home is near Melrose, Abbotsford. The river is the Tweed.
Completely unrelated, but why are these called Bank Holidays?
Quote from to the BBC.
" In the UK, we’ve had official bank holidays since 1871, when they were formally recognised by an Act of Parliament. On these days, banks were allowed to close, which is where the name comes from . It wasn’t long, however, before other types of businesses and schools began to close their doors as well".
I think the DIY and the “let’s join a queue on a motorway somewhere” traditions started a bit more recently.
A voice from the other side of the Pond: in Canada we also DIY, and people go to their cabin on the lake or by the ocean, camping in the mountains, or a hotel somewhere on what we call long weekends (our extra holidays tend to fall on a Monday).