Those hoping the bank holiday would bring Britain a Mediterranean atmosphere may have been disappointed, but one part of the UK did have an exotic holiday flavour: albeit of an Alpine variety.
The ski slopes of Cairn Gorm saw more than 7.3cm (3in) of snow at the weekend. Combined with clear skies and sun it made perfect skiing weather and prompted a decision to keep the resort open into June for the first time in 18 years.
More than 100 skiers were out at Cairngorm Mountain resort, which has seen 144,200 skiers take to its slopes so far this year. It has been an excellent year for all of Scotland's ski resorts.
Jonathan Gatenby, of Aviemore Business Association, said: "It's huge. We've seen 20% business growth in tourism."
Elsewhere too, the sunshine broke through the clouds and forecasters said that warmer weather would return later this week. And the lack of blistering conditions didn't put people off making trips to the coast.
Resorts had a second crowded day, followed by the customary crawl home, with long queues at traffic bottlenecks such as the Britannia bridge from Anglesey to the mainland.
Rebecca Sherwin, a forecaster at the Meteorological Office, said: "The official starting date for summer is 21 June but we're certainly going to be seeing some summer weather before then. Temperatures will reach the mid-20s by the middle of the week, after some rain on Tuesday, and we'll be seeing warmer weather than normal by the end of the week."
The exceptional high temperatures reached last Monday, topping at 28.8C at Heathrow airport, are unlikely and Sherwin said that June overall looked like being a "mixed bag".
