To really miss hot childhood summers?

[undermycatsthumb]

Feeling a bit nostalgic today as I sit here with the rain drumming on the window...

As a child we spent summers in Canada. I miss it all so much at this time of year: how we would lie on the hot wood of the dock until we couldn't stand it any more then launch ourselves into the lake; moonlit swims; picnics on the boat which would always include a big jar of pickles; cycling into town to go to the ice cream stand and popping into the hardware shop, which was always cool and dim and smelled amazing, to pick something up for my uncle; sunsets over the lake; a constant flow of BBQs and campfires; the lightning storms that would break after the heat built up too much; devouring book after book from my aunt and uncle's collection.

Anyone else sometimes wish they could turn the clock back to childhood summer?

My childhood summers consisted of camping (I hate camping) for the entire 6wk holiday in a field in Skeggy.
When we weren't doing that we were just out on our bikes having been kicked out at 10am and told not to come home til 5 so we entertained ourselves (this was before free playschemes were shut down so we had a place to go)
Yes I would love to have a carefree summer again even without having any money - my brother and I would go out looking for dumped supermarket trolleys to return to get the £1
Our biggest treat was chippy chips. I didn't go abroad until I was a teenager and able to pay for it myself.

I am so sad my kids only have 6 weeks off in this country, childhood summers used to feel like forever in my days, they will not experience it until we move.

I do wish i could turn the clock back, but I wish even more I could give them the same experience.

apooagnuandyou I think a big part of it is wishing I could give my kids that same experience. We always spend summer in the UK visiting family here. My kids have lovely summers but they may well mostly remember being peeled out of wetsuits, shivering :)
Where did you grow up?

Whereabouts are you? It's sunny where I am south of London. Cool though at 11 degrees C. I was thinking this morning that I like cool sunny April days and that if it was warm in April it would be unbearable in summer. I do find it unbearable here for part of the summer actually.
If it's hot like that in April in Canada is it not unbearable in full on summer?

I'm in Scotland. Canada is huge so climate varies a lot but yes summers where we would go were very, very hot, but I didn't mind at all.

I'm a summer Grinch, always have been I'm afraid. Never one for riding bikes or living on the beach for 6 weeks, though the options were available to me (lived a 5 minute walk away from a Blue Flag beach). My mother worked, and whilst I had lovely grandparents they were already elderly by the time we were born. They did well enough just having us around their house every day, there were no big trips or being supervised anywhere beyond their garden. By the time I was a teen, all I wanted was a dark room and my PS1, though did sometimes venture out to the closest city with friends for an afternoon. By the time you bought a travel fare, you only had a few quid to last you hours and it was barely worth it for some very limited window shopping.

At least in winter, no one expects you to go anywhere. I miss those dark Saturday nights, watching Gladiators, then Blind Date with my grandmother, sat by her electric fire to the point of having permanent red lines on my legs. Sometimes my mum would go out and get us all a chippy dinner, and if we were really lucky, a video rental. I remember those times more fondly!

Surely the summers in Canada will be different to summers on home soil? So you can't compare really childhool vs now.

In my own experiences, all on home soil, the summers of the 2010s have been hotter than previous decades. 2017 and 2018 was a nightmare!

Grew up in Australia. Our summers were scorching hot. Such fond memories of spending all day at the beach or at a friends pool or our own pool, then at the end of the day we'd hang up our bathers to dry overnight and then put them straight back on in the morning and do it all over again.

BrumBoo Funnily enough I really, really love winter now, but looking back at my childhood winters (with the exception of the Christmas period) I just remember being a bit cold and endless grey and rain. Your memories sound lovely though.

TrickorTreacle Oh yes, of course I'm not comparing like for like. I just mean that I miss my childhood summer. As a child as soon as Easter was over I would be on the mental countdown to get on the plane! I suppose I just wish I could decamp my whole family over there for the DCs' summer holidays.

alabaster11 That sounds brilliant. I was chatting with a friend who grew up in the US and now lives here in Scotland and she said what she really misses about American summer is that it came and it lasted. Summer in Scotland tends to be a week here or there!

I think Augusts in the UK aren't as good as they used to be but then I am old enough to remember the long hot summer of 1976. Springs may be better now though!

We’re about to move to Scotland, OP! I don’t think I’ll be showing DH this thread

We’re in London right now and - for me - the past few summers here have been painfully hot but I’m a peely-wally Scots lass at heart and can’t cope above 20 degrees! I think I’ll miss warm March/April though, which can be so lovely when it’s balmy and feels like summer has come early.

I grew up in Scotland and loved going to visit family in England - I thought you only got sun in England (!) so I do sympathise but I hope it’s perfectly possible to get some hot summer experience for our kids without it costing the Earth, by just coming south for a while. Can you do that perhaps ? Come when it’s still school term in England? It has been boiling the last few julys I think ...

Popskipiekin I hope your move goes well and you love being back! I actually grew up in SE England and love Scotland wholeheartedly, have no desire to move back to England. We do go to family in England in the summer (to the south coast) but it never feels like 'real' summer in the same sense, maybe because the water is cold and it's often windy!
Not sure where in Scotland you're going but I have to say last summer, when we didn't leave Scotland at all, we had a long weekend in Moray and there was something about the warmth and the pine and the sea that all felt a bit Mediterranean