I’ve had enough of water torture
IT’S official*. It is the most rubbish summer ever.
The sun hasn’t been seen in weeks and has clearly done a runner to Spain along with all Britain’s other most wanted characters.
Meanwhile it’s been wetter than a dolphin’s nose.
I accept my judgment may be coloured by a touch of post holiday blues but there is definitely something wrong with our weather.
According to the Met Office website the months of June and July “were rather wet generally”.
Rather wet generally? It’s been torrential. June had 155% of average rainfall. July had 137%. Presumably they haven’t published this month’s total yet because they can’t find a measuring stick deep enough.
My little boy’s cricket was cancelled at the weekend because of a waterlogged pitch. In August?
At the weekend I banned all talk of a day out at the beach. Why shiver in cagoules paddling in the sea at Southend, when they could do the same at home by plunging their feet into the plant pots where my geraniums once were before they floated away?
My poor auntie in Cumbria is clearly on the verge of some rain-induced despair. And please don’t say: “Ah, but we had a few nice days in June.” Who cares about June? That was another country. One where the kids had to sweat their way through GCSEs and A-levels only to be rewarded with damp and dreary days once their ordeal was over.
Also please don’t, as my dad insists on doing, say: “Well, it’s good for the garden.”
Because I really couldn’t give a flying fig about runner beans. And in a week’s time it’s September, Christmas cards will be in the shops and that’s summer over and done for another year.
Finally, let’s not have any talk about how it’s just rose-tinted sunglasses which make us believe summers were hotter and longer in the past.
They were. I have no recollection of rain until at least 1989.
Before that all we needed were shorts and a T-shirt, a bike, a can of Top Deck and life within Britain’s golden glow was good.
Perhaps it’s time to consider moving the school holidays to June. Alternatively, move them to somewhere in the Med.
Ah well, it’s bank holiday this weekend. That’s sure to be a scorcher… *It may not be officially official, but it ought to be.
Stuff the garden, I don’t give a fig about runner beans