Apocalypse, Vacations, & Spring

(“A Clue! A Clue!” – insert Blue’s Clues voice here.)

There are a remarkable number of acquaintances here in the UK who seem thrilled, no , relieved, that we’re going away. It’s the weirdest thing.

“Oh, good,” seems to be the overwhelming response that greets us as we reschedule our doctor’s visits and veg box deliveries. “That’s great,” friends tell us. It’s all a bit… odd. Why is it such a hopeful sign that we’re going away? We’re six thousand miles away from home. Why does everyone seem to think we need to go elsewhere?

Because, it seems, The Holiday is one of those backbones of British Civilization.

Seriously.

Without it comes the Apocalypse.

Like any social population, polite Glaswegian society seems to be held together loosely by a set of ingrained rules, the most important of which is Sustained Studied Nonobservance. The rules of I Don’t See You/You Don’t Exist work beautifully on trains, buses, and in convenience stores. They become harder to maintain in the face of loud cellphone conversations, and break down almost entirely at the drunk man weaving onto the bus and asking, “Don’t I know you?” and then explaining to all and sundry that he’s a professional singer, and warbling a botched version of “It Had to be You” as he stumbles down the aisle. The Sustained Studied Nonobservance pact becomes less sustained after three months, and by then, most Glaswegians in polite society either need A.) A random bank holiday, celebrating no particular saint or creed, but giving them a day off from the !#?%$*@&% madness, or B.) A full-on, fourteen day holiday, where they leave the country for somewhere else, get soused and sit stunned, staring in the sun. Without these outlets, communities break down.

(We don’t know about you, but we’d hate to see polite society break down around here. As it is, the man puking onto our back stairs at 3 a.m. and wailing “Gie us a pint!” into the night when the pub closes, and the people who don’t pick up after their dogs and the woman who stares at us at the bus stop — from a foot away — are operating within the parameters of polite…)

We’ve needed to get away for some little while now. Living in a city can be very wearing — other people’s noise and stench and inability to throw trash away properly (we now have seagulls waking us at 4 a.m. squabbling over trash on the road) can wear at the sheath protecting your nerves. And the long, lovely light-filled nights (the sun now goes down at 9:36 p.m.) just allows the denizens of the city a head-start on their nightly race up and down the street, singing “Rule Britannia” at the tops of their lungs, playing tag in traffic, having screaming-weeping-kick-the-bus-stop rages at perfidious womanhood, and on, and on, and lead you to consider that a total apocalypse of Biblical proportions might just be A Good Thing. After all, what wouldn’t a nice rain of sulfur and fire do for the — Wait, what?

We do beg Your pardon, Sir. Sorry, Sir, yes, Sir. Rains of fire are properly Your provenance, Sir. We understand that completely Sir, nothing to joke about, no. We’ll think on that “love one another” thing very deeply when we get back from vacation, Sir, you can be sure. Okay, now. We’ll think about it now. Yes, Sir.

Whew. *cough* Okay. No rains of fire. Rudeness does not deserve death. But, um, squids — a good rain of squids would completely clear out Sauchiehall, and — What? PETA? Oh, for the — no, no, no, don’t let them IN!! No, the squid thing is a joke, it’s just an example, a … no, no, don’t throw the ink, no one is tormenting squid here. I promise you — no, really! For pity’s sakes, back off! Fine, fine. No squids. No squids!!

Look, does anyone care if there is a rain of, say, pennies from heaven? Can we upgrade that to pounds? Those suckers are so nice and thick… Oh, okay, they would do a little damage, make a few alarms go off, dent a few cars… *sigh* Okay. Okay! Fine. No fire. No squid. No pennies. No apocalypse.

*mumblemumblemumble*

You see why people around here take so many vacations.

The stop-and-start nature of the warm weather has us thinking of that Ella Fitzgerald song “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.” The brilliant sunshine followed by absolute torrents of rain and a buckshot scattering of hail leaves us wondering if there hasn’t been some kind of gear that’s slipped, causing winter to continue to spin its wheels.

The land isn’t fooled, though; everything is greened and in almost full leaf, flowers are everywhere, and though every stretch of lawn is sodden, it’s lovely to walk through the park, as long as you stay on the paved paths.

And, there’s a random bank holiday on Monday. Life is good.

– D & T

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