Morning:
8°c
Most people, I know, don't spend their precious time off swimming down a freezing river in a thunderstorm. Yet struggling out of the upper Thames last week as forked lightning crackled around me was truly thrilling. The perfect antidote to stressed-out London life.
It was just the start of a tour around Britain's backwaters that took me from Gloucestershire to the north-east coast by way of Liverpool and the Yorkshire Moors. And it gave me a taste of what our politicians have in store when they pack their bags next week for sleepy UK hollows.
Like me, they may feel smug. It rained but there were no airport queues. A train to not-so-sunny Swindon was all it took - just two hours from door to destination. Neither did I have to trawl the bucket websites for cheap fares, thanks to fuel hikes piling the pounds on to summer flights.
Even after a week of drizzle, dodgy locals and soggy sandwiches, I'm certain David Cameron and Gordon Brown are right to shun exotic shores. I just wish more of us would do the same. Leaving London reminds you how fragile our countryside is. I sank up to my calves in sand rich with sticky oil at Crosby where I went to see Antony Gormley's statues. Swimming through the Cotswolds, my peace was spoiled only by low-flying planes.
You witness the cut of Britain's economic cake first hand, too. Central Swindon on a wet Sunday takes some beating - a rainswept concrete mall populated with shuffling drunks and hoodies - while seaside towns such as stunning Staithes, just north of Whitby, are a mix of money and reality. Property prices are up 25 per cent since spring, thanks to London-based holiday-homers. But the fish-and-chip shop's closed because of local poverty.
Of course I also crave foreign breaks with searing sun. The downsides of holidaying at home are still numerous, from motorway queues with no apparent cause to restaurants that try too hard or not at all. And you can't prebook the weather.
But waking up in Staithes to the sound of seagulls, seeing 100 haunting Gormleys stretch for miles along Crosby beach and driving into the beauty of the North York Moors - all in a week - gave me plenty to remember bar the rain. I've even been complimented on my freckly UK tan.
There's only one real hazard in a Great British holiday - the chance of bumping into an MP. I was thinking of the Western Isles this August. But Alistair Darling's put a midgie in that ointment.
