Enniscorthy Guardian

This heatwave has made me even more slovenly, but... I don’t care!

- Justine O’Mahony

LAST NIGHT WE SWAM IN THE SEA AT 8 PM - IT WAS LIKE A BATH. IT’S THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I reckon Tesco have taken a serious hit in recent weeks seeing as I haven’t done a proper grocery shop in a month.

This heatwave has dragged my already questionab­le housekeepi­ng skills further into the depths of slovenline­ss but do you know what? I don’t care!

I’m as brown as a berry and loving life! We’ve had doughnuts for breakfast and sausages for dinner three days in a row. You could stick to the kitchen floor and the washing machine is beginning to think it’s gone into early retirement but feck it! This glorious, miraculous weather won’t last forever. And when it does break, the housework will still be there.

Last night we swam in the sea at 8 pm. It was like a bath. We sat in the garden drinking beer and looking at the stars till midnight and we didn’t need a jacket. It’s the stuff of dreams.

And I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of another summer that was as good as this one. Everybody says ‘76. All I remember of that summer was we had a caravan in Rosslare strand. My mother threw us out the door straight after breakfast and told us not to come back till lunchtime.

I don’t recall a drop of sun cream touching my skin or even being asked where we were going but we’d come back at the appointed time ravenous and filthy after hours playing in the sunshine with a band of other little renegades. My mother would feed us mad stuff like chops, new spuds and baked beans, food we wouldn’t eat in a million years at home. Those carefree sunny days were the happiest of my life.

So let’s hope if this fabulous weather teaches us anything, it will teach us to keep life simple, to get back to basics. I hope our children will remember this summer in years to come as the summer of the great heatwave, the World Cup, and the summer they realised you don’t need the trappings of wealth to be happy.

Let them swim in the sea, feel the sun on their skin and rub the sand from their toes, let them play on the street with the other kids till its way past their bed time. Buy them 99’s and Mr Freezes and don’t force them to have a shower if they don’t want to. Sure there’s a drought for God’s sake!

Most of all let them relish this moment. We may never see the like again. And if anyone has a housekeepe­r who’d like to come and sort out my house while I sunbathe, message me immediatel­y!

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