British Summer Hype: Is 10 Degrees Celsius a Nice Day?

We have made it through the winter. Some parts of the country get the message later than others, but it is undoubtedly happening, and rightly so, four months into the year. Wondrous changes are upon us. Miraculously, there is still some light when it hits eight o'clock. You can practically smell the GCSE students' procrastination vibes in the streets as exam season sets in. I have to endure Amanda Holden's voice with the return of Britain's Got Talent.

So now that you can occasionally step outside without a ski jacket, it's not rare to hear "we can't handle hot weather here", or "when it gets above twelve degrees, people act like it's tropical". As we get eased into summer, there seems to be a stream of disgruntled remarks about others' summertime behaviour.

Perhaps there is some truth to their complaints. The climate changes by a few degrees, one day, for an hour, and suddenly clothes are flung off and the entire country is skipping to any green space available with a picnic hamper, a lawn mower trailing behind them and the twinkle of hundreds of ice cream vans, awoken from a long hibernation, in the background. 

FIND ME A PARK

What kind of weather would have us launching ourselves outside for an impromptu sunbathe, frozen drink, or barbecue? Once more, I turned to my trustworthy peers to find out. After asking around a little, Jack, 20, comments that as a British resident, "any temperature above ten degrees is basically a nice day for us" - so I decided that this would be my starting point:

Is ten degrees a nice day? And is a "nice day" enough to whip out sunglasses and infinite amounts of skin?

At first, the bar is set high, and well away from the crazed Briton stereotype: Alistair, 19, says that real hot weather constitutes "sweating without any physical activity". Apparently, ten degrees is only nice for Autumn. 

The next suggested test for true summertime is "if you have a sudden urge to sit in a beer garden, that's your body ... telling you it's barbecue time". Meanwhile, Tallula, 18, claims that ten degrees accompanied by a blue sky would be a "nice day" but definitely not warm enough for a sunbathing attempt.

So far, this all sounds fairly reasonable. I am impressed by their rationality, and am forced to wonder: just who are the eager beavers stripping off at the sight of a gap in the clouds? I feel proud: they're definitely not my friends! So far, there is no need to be shocked.

... Or is there? All of a sudden, I stumble across the aforementioned beavers of eagerness. Beth, 20, says she has been having barbecues all through the winter, and one day in March it was sunny so - brace yourselves - she wore shorts! Other keen beans say they have been sunbathing already this season.

Meanwhile, heated debates begin, as one peer responds: "Ten degrees is f*cking cold, what planet are you people from?", and puts the bar for summertime sadness temperatures at an ambitious twenty degrees, when it becomes "acceptable to get the thighs out". 

Other criteria for summer behaviour include no clouds in the sky ("obviously"), and comfortably sitting outside without a jacket/shirt (actual heat doesn't appear to be essential). Ten minutes has been set as the appropriate test time for this. Eighteen degrees is mentioned a few times as the minimum sunbathing temperature.

Unsurprisingly, I clearly find no absolute answer. There is no agreement. Either way, most people I speak to are happy that warmer days are finally upon us.

And can we really be blamed for getting excited? For a country whose climate changes only from bad to dreadful, we are ridiculously obsessed with the weather. It's our go-to topic of conversation at all times. It's the fail-safe language of our nation, complete with its own colloquialisms (gusty? Brisk? Nippy? ...Tell me those are real words). So I would say it's perfectly reasonable to celebrate the turn of the season, and if this lapses in to going a little overboard at times, so be it. Let your neighbours shirtlessly flip a burger on a BBQ, embrace tripping over the maxi skirts swarming the high street, be patient with your friend who is suddenly prefixing her Starbucks order with "iced". Before you know it, we'll be back in the grey drizzle for another few months. 

... Zac clearly has not witnessed a UK winter.