Summer Holiday

So, alas, I have returned. Back in England, where skies are grey. My first 'real' summer holiday since 2005 is over, leaving me to attempt to cling onto memories to tell myself I'd managed to break from the norm for a few days.

I'd travelled to Estonia several times previously, and enjoyed the fairly chilled out nature that perhaps comes with having only a million and a half people in an area the size of the Netherlands. Plus the beer is ace. What I hadn't fully anticipated was the freakish heatwave that has stormed over Northern Europe. Temperatures in the 30s have been common place for a few weeks now, which isn't great when 90% of your wardrobe is black and it's a good idea to keep your legs covered up less people are mentally scarred by the sight of them.

Though my first night saw a huge rain storm and a thunder/lightning storm (always good at unsettling me), the next day saw the sun give all it had, which it continued to do so. Having not experienced that kind of heat in about 15 years, it certainly made for some hard work walking out around in the daytime.

By accident more than design, my time in the towns of Pärnu and Viljandi was marked by next to no access to the internet, meaning my only news source was from CNN, which is always good for a laugh. Though not spending hours in my hotel room watching TV, I did enjoy two particular shows: one was a old cartoon that featured no speech, but seemed to be the product of a deranged imagination that had been through one bad acid trip too many.

Secondly, I caught some package showing what I assumed were the Estonian pop highlights of 1983. Judging by this, prog rock went down very well in those parts. A particular highlight was this little number:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4BOXkPACS4&feature=related

I'd love to know if the magnifying glass is relevant to the song or just some bizarre idea the video director had. Always interesting to listen to songs in a style you're familiar with (i.e. rock) but have not the faintest idea what is being sung about.

To move on in another direction, I'm not the most travelled bod around. The list of countries I have visited reads Spain, Portugal, France (for a day), Germany, USA, Latvia (for a day), Estonia and Finland (again, for a day), but it did occur to me how much Britain seems 'different' from the rest of the Europe. Though every European country is naturally different from the others, there does seem to be a common 'vibe' (for want of a better word) that isn't evident at home. Of course, this could just be the sense of not being in the land of the familiar, or that they drive on the other side of the road.

Perhaps this is why I face down my fears of travel, to be somewhere different. There's a lot to be said for sitting under a tree in the middle of the ruins of a 14th century Estonian castle, staring up to a sky populated by a solitary cloud, hearing nothing but the chirruping of insects and letting your thoughts go wherever. Living in a city as big as Manchester, finding such moments is a rarity.

Then, before you know it, you're back home on the 43 bus from the airport, sitting behind a couple wasted from the Friday night session while all you want is to not be there for a little while longer.