Always stays the same, nothing ever changes
English summer rain seems to last for ages

So in the UK, we’ve gone from horrendously oppressive, sticky weather to thunderstorms and driving rain in the space of a week. I am totally cool with this (and totally cool – any temperature above around 10 degrees is too much for me), and I’m especially enjoying the English summer rain at the moment.

Incidentally, how the bloody hell does the Placebo song, after which this post is named, manage to embody the concept of English summer rain so well?

I suppose weather likes this makes it easy to hygge, even in July. I know you can hygge in the summer, but as an autumn fanatic, I’m pretty much waiting out the next few weeks for September to arrive. I sometimes prefer not to tell people I don’t really enjoy the summer, because it’s hard for most people to understand. Long days! The sun! The heat! And true, I don’t hate everything about it. I like cold bottles of Pinot Grigio in a pub garden, and summer evening walks where you smell heady jasmine and watered plants and the heat rising from the pavement. But really, wild wild weather is what I enjoy in the summer.

As I always say, hygge often comes at the most surprising times. It’s very easy to be disappointed when the weather stops you from doing something you’d planned to do (it rains every single time I want to go fruit picking or eat al fresco), but that’s why it’s good to be adaptable. I hate to say ‘go with the flow’, but really, go with the flow. The weather in Scandinavia is notoriously temperamental, yet the Nordic countries are always ranked the happiest in the world. A bit of wind and rain doesn’t stop the Scandis having fun, and it should be just the same everywhere else. If you’re living in the UK and pinning your hopes on a beautifully sunny summer, you’re going to be disappointed, so we may as well embrace the inevitable storms along the way.

Instead of lamenting the fact the sun has gone AWOL, it’s so much better to think of an unexpected downpour as an opportunity to do something else. There is so much you can do to embrace summer rain – I LOVE walking in warm rain, but even if you don’t, this is the perfect time to check out a new café, go for an afternoon glass of prosecco or mooch around an art gallery (art galleries are so much better when you know it’s raining outside). Or if the weather has thoroughly dampened your mood, take the chance to catch up on some of the shows you’ve recorded and haven’t had time to watch, or flick through a magazine (even if it’s three months since you bought it – yes, I’m one of those), or just crack out that bottle of weird liqueur you ordered online when you were slightly drunk on Christmas Day (yes, I did that too) and invent a new signature cocktail.

English summer rain isn’t so bad, you know.