Wet? We don't care when the weatherman says it's raining

WISELY saving their pennies, holidaymakers turned their backs on the guaranteed sun of foreign holidays in this economic gloom and made do with a family holiday in a Scottish caravan park.

But yesterday, as torrential rain lashed many parts of the UK, the adventure park at Seton Sands Holiday Village was deserted, and barbecue sets and bicycles were tucked away under tarpaulins.

But inside one caravan a cosy scene was played out as the Kennedy family, from Coalville, Leicestershire, played a game of Scrabble and discussed whether to have baked potatoes with cheese and beans for their evening meal.

And the family insisted the poor weather is not spoiling one second of their long-awaited holiday to the East Lothian coast.

Elaina, 38, Richard, 35, and their four children – Abbie, 15, Samuel, 13, David, ten, and ten-month-old Andrew – packed for all weathers and arrived equipped with DVDs and board games as well as buckets and spades.

Mrs Kennedy, a secretary, admitted: "Your heart does sink a tiny bit when you see the rain. But if we have to stay inside we entertain ourselves with Scrabble, play traditional card games like snap and rummy, or read books.

"David's been playing on the laptop we brought, and sometimes we see what's on telly or get DVDs."

And despite the noise from four youngsters in a confined space, Mrs Kennedy said she was delighted that the unseasonal weather allowed her to spend more time with her children.

"There is a holiday club with activities, but if we stay in sometimes on a day like this, it gives us more quality time together," she said.

Abbie, who writes for a teenage website, said she would not enjoy a foreign beach holiday. She said: "I like the rain. I would just flake out if it was hot. I went down for a walk to the beach last night, and that was fine. It doesn't need to be sunny all the time."

The 15-year-old added: "I've brought some books with me to read and we go out trips into Edinburgh and do things there and it doesn't matter about the weather."

Also making the most of his time at the holiday village was nine-year-old Jamie Towers, from Monkton in Ayrshire – leaving his dad free to explore the Edinburgh Festival.

Alan Towers, 42, a taxi driver, said: "Jamie is not bothered in the slightest by the weather. He would fry like an egg if he was in Spain.

"He's out on his bike down to the kiddies' club

. He's met about a dozen other boys here, and yesterday he set off at 11am and I didn't see him again until 8pm.

"The rain doesn't stop me doing what I want either," he went on. "If I arrange for other parents to keep an eye on Jamie I can catch the number 26 bus right outside the holiday camp and get direct to Princes Street.

"I've made sure Jamie brought along his PlayStation PSP game, and we've got our stock of DVDs, his bike and footballs."

Met Office warnings as downpour goes on across Scotland

THE Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for various parts of the UK, including Strathclyde, Tayside, Fife, south-west Scotland, Lothian and Borders, for today.

The bad weather has come less than a month after two days of heavy rain sparked chaos across Scotland. In Edinburgh, about 23mm (almost an inch) of rain fell in 12 hours – more than a third of the city's average rainfall for July.

The average rainfall across Scotland during July was 3.24in, about a third greater than the norm over the last 30 years. The sunshine average across Scotland was 134 hours, about 16 per cent less than the average July, compared with an average of 191 hours in England and Wales last month.

Edinburgh was the dullest place in Britain last month with an average of just 100 hours of sunshine.

A spokesman for the Met Office said: "It's been pretty average weather since the start of the summer so far."

But a spokesman for MeteoGroup UK said: "The weather has been a bit wetter than average, but the average temperature has been a bit higher than normal. When you get a lot of cloud cover it can make it warmer overnight."