Your underwhelming UK holiday photographs

July 28, 2015 7:36 AM

Spirit of the Nation. The Guardian has invited readers to submit their uninspiring holiday photos. That is all.
posted by glasseyes (49 comments total)

This is not the thing to show someone (i.e. muggins here) who's just booked a week on Islay.
posted by sobarel at 7:45 AM on July 28, 2015

What remote and majestic scene is this?

I love this so much.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:47 AM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

Just sent it to my friend who's about to head over to England for two weeks. What's worse, she's going to be riding her motorcycle the entire time.

/sad trombone
posted by lydhre at 7:51 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

We were on vacation in San Diego last week, and it rained ALL weekend. It was a bummer, but we had a great time. We ended up with a few nice days and two rainy ones, and did our best to have fun no matter what we were doing.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:51 AM on July 28, 2015

Current 4th photo down, 4 people on a beach with a windbreak over their knees? My SO spent most of her childhood hols getting rained on at that beach. Her folks have a place 5 minutes up the road. Its quite nice in the sun. But I guess it rained on quite a few summer's days like this and her mum is not the plan cancelling type.
posted by biffa at 7:52 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I spent two weeks in Cornwall about a month ago, and the weather was absolutely fucking GLORIOUS.
posted by ZipRibbons at 7:53 AM on July 28, 2015

My SO spent most of her childhood hols getting rained on at that beach.

there is something so hilariously british about grimly going for a paddle in one's rain slicker.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:54 AM on July 28, 2015 [16 favorites]

Here's my contribution, although tbh "empty, howling moor" is pretty much my idea of paradise
posted by theodolite at 7:55 AM on July 28, 2015 [23 favorites]

Here's my contribution, although tbh "empty, howling moor" is pretty much my idea of paradise

Yeah that looks great; that's what I'd visit the UK for. I might have spend too much time reading M.R. James stories, though.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:57 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

ah man, i remembered grimly determined on spending at least one day on the Brighton beach, because I had come all the way from Glasgow, so never mind all that wet.
posted by cendawanita at 7:59 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

What remote and majestic scene is this?

Pretty sure that's the top of Ben Nevis.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:00 AM on July 28, 2015

It's the top of Snowdon. A train runs to the summit, so it's usually busy up there. Glorious in good weather though.
posted by sobarel at 8:02 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

None. None more UK Holiday.
posted by Kitteh at 8:02 AM on July 28, 2015 [6 favorites]

Also, we were on holiday in Kent not too long ago and for the most part, it was gloriously cool sunny British spring weather, but the one day we decided to go to Dover, it was horribly chilly and windy and grey. I secretly loved it and happily bought a cup of tea from a tiny mobile coffee van on the beach while my husband grimaced about the paths to the cliffs being closed.
posted by Kitteh at 8:05 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sorry, Snowden... yeah queing to get to the top is no surprise there.

I had a couple of weeks up in Scotland - Edinburgh, Glasgow, up into the highlands... for the first week or so the sun came out for once for literately three seconds. Then on the day planned for climbing up Ben Nevis it was beautiful sunny weather! Of course in the final couple of hours of the ascent the mist came down so you could see sod all from the top. But by then I was too knackered to care.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:05 AM on July 28, 2015

Remember great times on family holidays when it chucked it down so much we ended up going to the cinema all day.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:07 AM on July 28, 2015

What remote and majestic scene is this?

You go to the beautiful remote Snowdonia park, which is 800 square miles and criss-crossed by 1500 miles of footpaths.

What will you do with all this possibility?

You'll climb the same route everyone else is climbing of course and shuffle slowly in a queue.
posted by vacapinta at 8:09 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

You can get a train to the summit of Snowdon which why you get more visitors up there than your average mountain.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:19 AM on July 28, 2015

What remote and majestic scene is this?

Pretty sure that's the top of Ben Nevis.

The link referenced in all these comments was for some reason going to the previous photo for me instead and my confusion was very entertaining.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:21 AM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

What will you do with all this possibility?

You'll climb the same route everyone else is climbing of course and shuffle slowly in a queue.

But if you're queueing, you are participating in a national pastime!
posted by ocherdraco at 8:24 AM on July 28, 2015 [8 favorites]

Wouldn't a real UK holiday involve verbally berating a waiter for not serving "proper food" in some godawful tapas place in Costa Del Sol?
posted by The Whelk at 8:26 AM on July 28, 2015 [6 favorites]

One of the joys of England, Britain, whatever, is that, as my head teacher once said, "we don't have a climate, we just have weather". A week or so ago - I notice several of these pix are taken in Sussex where I'm from - we had the hottest sunniest weather you could hope for north of the Med, and it'll be so again within days. Meanwhile, enjoy the variety!
posted by Boggins at 8:26 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Being cold and wet is what the British countryside is for. We'll be having none of your fancy sunshine and blue skies and warm weather round here, keep that for those excitable chaps south of The Channel.
posted by fatfrank at 8:27 AM on July 28, 2015 [12 favorites]

Last time I holidayed in the UK, we wrecked four cars on a bank holiday and I spent a long time (too long) wandering through Northumbria with a head injury. It rained every day but one!
posted by mochapickle at 8:30 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

Being cold and wet is what the British countryside is for. We'll be having none of your fancy sunshine and blue skies and warm weather round here, keep that for those excitable chaps south of The Channel.

Exactly, anyone can be happy on holiday if the weather is warm and sunny. It takes grit, determination and unflagging optimism to make a good holiday in bad weather.

I'm sure it must be character building.
posted by antiwiggle at 8:33 AM on July 28, 2015 [9 favorites]

For my birthday in June we took a short trip up the Antrim Coast. We walked down a billion or so stone steps to get to a ruined castle thing. This is the view from inside it because it was pissing it down.

A couple of weeks later we went to visit the Giant's Ring in Belfast. This is the Neolithic tomb from a great distance as we had to leg it across the field and under a big tree, because it was pissing it down. (On the way there my Dad rang from his holiday in Portugal to tell me it was 35C and "nearly too hot".)

But this one is my favourite - my sister sent me this of my nieces enjoying their holiday in Donegal wearing the world's most redundant sunglasses.
posted by billiebee at 8:38 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Exactly, anyone can be happy on holiday if the weather is warm and sunny. It takes grit, determination and unflagging optimism to make a good holiday in bad weather.

Is it possible that the British just have the same quality of holiday experience everywhere no matter what the local conditions are like? So if they're on the roof of a hotel in Istanbul watching the sun set, listening to the muezzins, and feeling the breeze off the water they're going to whine about the tea (drawn from life, obviously), but if they're sitting on a "beach" in the cold and the rain, they just try to enjoy it.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:38 AM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

Of course you have two itineraries* when you go on holiday to Devon/Cornwall/whatever for dry and wet days... obviously.

*because fun has to be planned of course.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:42 AM on July 28, 2015

Yes, it's a puzzler for sure why an archipelago of islands in the north Atlantic has a temperate maritime climate.
posted by sobarel at 8:43 AM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

Wouldn't a real UK holiday involve verbally berating a waiter for not serving "proper food" in some godawful tapas place in Costa Del Sol?

for me it's that episode of dinnerladies where brenda is talking about someone going to marbella and she pronounces it maw-BELL-uh
posted by poffin boffin at 8:50 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

England invented the summer game of cricket, a game that in its purest form requires five rainless days to complete a match. I've said many times that cricket is the English form of zen; its very existence is a zen koan.
posted by Hogshead at 8:52 AM on July 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

I think my takeaway from these delightfully British holiday snaps is wrong in that I am now looking up walking holidays for next year.
posted by Kitteh at 9:24 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

brb just drinking gallon of nepenthe
posted by lalochezia at 9:36 AM on July 28, 2015

Dreich, dreary weather CAN be great on a holiday, no bout adoubt it! But when your everyday life is filled with dreich, dreary weather, then HELL NO. This year's Scottish summer is sucking BIG time. Poo. :/

[i.e., those pictures aren't underwhelming holiday photos, just pics of everyday life in parts of the UK.]
posted by Halo in reverse at 9:52 AM on July 28, 2015

The holiday bit is where you're stuck in the traffic for longer.

It takes grit, determination and unflagging optimism to make a good holiday in bad weather.

For some interestingly diverse values of good. I've had many family holidays like in photo 4, it was a useful introduction to understanding my in-laws. And my partner, come to that. And to acquiring strange new tastes.
posted by glasseyes at 10:03 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've been to 7 of those 18 places. Not always in the rain.
posted by dowcrag at 10:12 AM on July 28, 2015

mustn't grumble
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:43 AM on July 28, 2015 [12 favorites]

"Oh, you should have been here last week! I swear the tar was melting off the roads!"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:54 AM on July 28, 2015

I'm amazed to find out that Bardsey (pop 4) has picnic tables and somewhere selling tea.
posted by StephenB at 10:57 AM on July 28, 2015

We did a road trip through Scotland a couple of years ago. The entire two weeks, it was sunny. Every single person we met made sure we understood what a miracle that was.
I still think of Scotland as an amzingly mild, cheerful place.
posted by Omnomnom at 11:23 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I want to live on the edge of a cliff where the sky scowls and glowers and it's pretty much rainy or foggy or sleety or snowy all the time and the winds howl and wail and blast and the sea crashes against the craggy shore. So of course I fell (irredeemably) in love with a Greek man and live with him in the Eternal Sunshine of the Hottest Kind. Before that I lived with my parents who were refugees from the arctic midwest US who never wanted to see snow again, so cruelly forced me to live in green, lush, beachy, tropical US climes.

I don't know why everyone I love tortures me this way, but I'm booking my ticket for Underwhelming UK Holiday!
posted by taz at 11:24 AM on July 28, 2015 [13 favorites]

My dad used to book us all a caravan holiday once a year, often in North Wales, where it rains a lot. It was always a lot of fun for us kids at least, rainy days included. Plus swimming in the rain makes the sea seem warmer.
posted by carter at 11:34 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I keep seeing Father Christmas in every one of these shots in the background with a yellow mac.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:37 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

taz anytime you want a house swap let me know. Purely for your benefit, you understand.
posted by billiebee at 12:17 PM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

Oh man, could we have a MeFite Underwhelming UK Holiday Exchange?? That would be the best!
posted by Kitteh at 12:57 PM on July 28, 2015 [7 favorites]

I live in the part of California that is classified as being in "exceptional" long-term drought, and will be in Gloucestershire for ten days early next month. These pictures are making me very excited to experience water-from-the-sky.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 1:01 PM on July 28, 2015 [8 favorites]

I spent two weeks in Cornwall about a month ago, and the weather was absolutely fucking GLORIOUS.

That must have been the two weeks I was away. I should sell insurance based on when I am out of Cornwall
posted by biffa at 1:52 PM on July 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

> Last time I holidayed in the UK, we wrecked four cars on a bank holiday

After the third car I might consider taking the rest of the day off.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:24 PM on July 28, 2015 [9 favorites]

I live in the part of California that is classified as being in "exceptional" long-term drought, and will be in Gloucestershire for ten days early next month. These pictures are making me very excited to experience water-from-the-sky.

I live in Gloucestershire and am from San Francisco. If you need any tips/guidance let me know (directly or start an Ask Mefi thread)
posted by vacapinta at 3:12 AM on July 29, 2015