I once wore shorts to visit family in north-east England, and it was snowing when I arrived.
A nearby moor-top reservoir usually looks like it belongs in Hound of the Baskervilles.
And Whitby's windswept beach is better known for being sand-blasted than sun-baked.
But this time was different.
Stand-up paddle boarders were on the reservoir (Scaling Dam).
On the Costa del Whitby, the harbour could have been in Greece, with a lake of water, al fresco diners, graceful fishing boats and twinkling lights.
The August Bank Holiday heatwave was so hot we even saw a three-foot grass snake.
And on the Teeside Riviera, locals cowered in the shade for fear of melting on the streets.
Ee ba gum, as they say around here. It means 'by god,' by the way.
HOME TRUTHS
I've blogged about French Polynesia and Indonesia – but this blog is closer to home, and closer to my heart.
I'm not from London, where I was born and live now.
I'm not from Lincoln, where I grew up.
My family – and therefore me - are from Stockton, a town 200 miles north of London.
Here, my grandparents lived, ran corner shops, worked for Home Guard patrols in World War II, and enchanted my childhood visits with joyous memories of farm visits, card games, home-made biscuits and fudge.
Houses and beer are half the price of London here. But life seems twice as nice.
YORKSHIRE LIFE
Real-life Postman Pat.
That's one way to describe the area's North York Moors, where we stay with family in a beautiful old house with flower-decked gardens.
There are farms, rounded valleys formed by glaciers' meltwater - and nearby Lealholm, described by the Sunday Times as the 'prettiest village in Yorkshire.'
Between the nest of light-grey stone houses straddling a humpback stone bridge, kids – including mine – love playing on the stepping stones in the River Esk, in which I swam for the first time since childhood.
The sunbathing throng meant no-one was using the village green's horseshoe-throwing quoits pitch.
But the shop selling lush fresh scones (Nati!) and ice cream (Leo!!) was open.
The pub is the centre of the community, selling locals' rabbit, pheasant and beef - and with a darts board with no trebles.
Yorkshiremen's gruff accent soon melts after a pint.
The phone service on my phone says nowt, of course, but - ey up, lad - that's part of the appeal.
STEAMY NOSTALGIA
It was from Postman Pat to Thomas the Tank Engine as the North York Moors Steam Railway's engines chuffed and Leo cheered.
We were back in the 1950s and the heyday of rail, with pastel-coloured station tearooms decked with 60-year-old posters promoting beach resort day trips.
George Stephenson's assistant built the railway, but when it opened in 1836, it was pulled by horse, and even rope on one hill.
These days, the soot-caked, sweating faces of engineers shovelling coal into fires on the world's busiest steam railway belong to 100 staff and 250 volunteers, one of whom told me he had worked on the line since it reopened in 1976.
Steam is romantic and nostalgic – but just not practical: it takes four hours' coal burning to build up enough steam pressure to power an engine.
We stopped off at the village of Goathland, with its train station used as Hogwarts station in Harry Potter, and where TV show Heartbeat was filmed.
PURPLE PATHS
Over the purple heather one way is Whitby, with a replica of local boy Captain Cook's Endeavour in the harbour, the Abbey on the hill and a straight-off-the-boat fish market.
Over the heather the other way is Stockton, one end of Stephenson's world's first steam rail line to Darlington in 1825.
The line, built to take coal from mines to the port, saw the town boom.
My parents were born there in the post-World War II baby-boom, the years of rationing, the excitement of the first cars and TVs, knowing everyone on your street and leaving your front door unlocked.
The town's engineering industry slumped in the 1980s, but the friendliness remains, always notably higher than London.
MEGA HISTORY
Giant-scale theatre sees a helter-skelter history of England told in the 'Kynren' show.
It's part-inspired by the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and is held in a coal-mining town near Durham.
Its 8,000 seats sell out for every show. If it was near London, it would be a media sensation.
Swords clash with the Romans, Vikings, King Arthur and William the Conqueror; you can actually smell the smoke from the Industrial Revolution's chimneys; and cinema-style surround sound is stunning for the growl of a World War II plane.
There's even snow, in my favourite scene: the mist-shrouded World War I battlefields Christmas truce.
During the show, Leo was the most animated he has ever been watching anything, waving his arms like an orchestra's conductor.
500 volunteers are the show's actors, and most have performed every summer Saturday for the past four years.
An ex-banker who went to school nearby dreamt up the show to bring tourists to the area.
He recruited Steve Boyd, the laid-back London-based American who has directed mass choreography at every Olympics ceremony since Barcelona 1992, and guided Nati and I as we danced in London's Olympic opening ceremony.
Oh, and 'Kynren'? It's Anglo-Saxon for 'generations.'
This blog is the tale of my family's generations.
My kynren, or as we say in modern English, my kin.
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