I was sitting in the park yesterday after my day in the office. Yes, after my day in the office! It was still sunny and light and warm! The park (or rather Tooting Common to be exact) was full of families, couples, single people, groups of friends and everyone was having a lovely time, getting out of their Tooting flats and houses for rent. People were smiling, children were laughing and couples were kissing. I popped in to the corner shop next to the park to buy a refreshing lolly and the man at the counter (usually grumpy and over-tired) was really warm and friendly. He asked me how I was and if I was enjoying the sunshine and we had a lovely chat! I crossed the road to go back to the park and cars stopped to let me without rushing me at all! In London that’s pretty impressive! So it made me think, what if the weather was always like this in England? What if our climate was like that of Spain and we never had to button up and slip over on ice and scrap our cars in the mornings. What if when we finished our boring day in the office it didn’t matter because the sunny evening stretched ahead of us to do what we want with. What if we had naps in the day time and started work later and pubs stayed open later and you could sit in the beer garden in the sunshine for ages. I wonder if we’d be a happier nation. I wonder if the psyche of British people would change? Maybe we’d become more laid back. Maybe that stiff upper lip of ours would crumble and we’d become more open and passionate with our emotions and our opinions. What a strange new world that would be! Can you imagine? The UK: a happy, light-hearted, emotionally open place? I think not! But hey, it’s nice to imagine…