British v Mediterraneans

This weekend I went to Argyll, in the West of Scotland with a very nice group of British people. Yes, I was the only foreigner in more than twenty in the group. A quite unique experience for me, who am always in groups with a majority of foreigners and one or two natives of theses islands.
Now, one thing about the West of Scotland, to which anyone who has been there can testify, is that, unlike in the East Coast, it rains almost continuously. Exactly what people everywhere else in the world would classify as "very British weather". Besides, there are these wee flies, the midges, that bite you all over. Very annoying!
Now, for a Mediterranean this would have been enough reason to stay home all day long complaining about the weather of these islands and longing for the dryer Summer from back home. This would even constitute a perfect reason (like many other million of perfect reasons) to call the mother, the brother, the cousin and the parish priest back home to complain about it. Not for a British, though. The amazing thing about the natives here is that they couldn't care less for what the weather is like (except to talk about it in detail). If they set their minds on doing something, they do it. And these group of British I was with had planned to use the game lawn in the very nice estate we were at to play games such as a sort of baseball for beginners (forgot the name) and football. They had also set their minds in going to the closest river to swim. And that was exactly what we all did.
I don't know if they felt any discomfort in playing games in the rain. I didn't hear them complaining about being chewed alive by midges. At last, to swim in a river in Argyll seemed to be as pleasurable as to do the same in the Caribbean Islands. It's easy to imagine these people during WWII, with their houses destroyed by the Luftwaffe, brewing a nice cup of tea at 5pm to relax a bit.