Are you ready for pre-summer mania?
The predicted heatwave may last just two days, but our reaction will be typically British, says Guy Kelly. It is April, after all...
You cannot say it has taken you by surprise. From vague hope to idle rumour and then full Tomasz Schafernaker-official, the warm weather hype has been building now for well over a week. “Have you heard?” people will have excitedly whispered, “It’s going to reach the mid-20s by Thursday. Summer. Is. Here. And it’s early!”
After a winter so long and gruelling it made Game of Thrones look like it’s set on the Costa del Sol, Britain is set to marinade in a brief, midweek heatwave over the next two days. It is a triumph for the optimists among us. And, as sure as night follows day, as a nation we will react as we do whenever this sort of thing happens – as though this 48-hour period of mild warmth could be the very last sunshine we ever see.
You’ve probably already had a Mini Milk lolly for breakfast. You are possibly considering watering the lawn, if only to get in there before the hosepipe ban is announced this afternoon. You might even be giving serious thought – after you’ve finished reading it, naturally – to folding your Daily Telegraph into a paper hat.
The rush is on, but beware – are you about to display Pre-summer Mania (PSM)? Here’s what to look out for over the next couple of days: a period of time that history will remember as “the summer of 2018”.
It will be all you talk about
Given that winter has lasted for around nine years, do not be surprised if the shock at feeling the sun on your skin renders you unable to speak about anything else for the foreseeable future. In a way, it will be a comfort: just as on snowy days, the weather will mean you can connect with almost any stranger merely by jutting out your lower lip, blowing air up into your face and raising your eyebrows in sheer astonishment – to which they will wordlessly nod to say: “I hear you.”
At work, you will fixate over the temperature and trawl through social media for one example of a normally sun-soaked destination that Farnborough is currently beating in the temperature stakes – “It’s hotter than Athens, can you believe it?” – just to wow colleagues and bask in national pride.
Later, over a dinner you simply must eat outside, despite the Herculean logistics required to achieve it (“what do you MEAN the garden furniture is still in the shed?”). You won’t be able to hide your glee that the neighbours are away on holiday in Tangier, while you’re getting just as much sun at home, thank you very much. Although, maybe it’s time to put on a cardigan…
Dietary dilemmas
At petrol stations and supermarkets, miniature barbecues and charcoal briquettes have already been unloaded by the palletful, where they rest next to discount crates of lager, last year’s Pimm’s over-order, and enough strawberries to cater Wimbledon for the next decade. For the coming days, the diet of every Briton will change unrecognisably. For the disciplined, Mediterranean weather will result in gazpacho, salads, white fish and a crisp Pinot, perhaps. For the rest of us, though, it will be a case of “Can this nondescript piece of meat feasibly be thrown on the barbecue?”, followed by Googling whether it’s OK to eat chicken thighs that are black as coal on the outside and still fuchsia under the surface. (Answer: no.)
The flesh will out
“Sun’s out, guns out” as the saying goes among the gym-honed community. Even for men not carrying any discernible firearms, however, shirts will vanish like it’s 3pm at a Premier League match. After all, this is Britain, where it is man’s (not woman’s) ancient right to wander around any and all public places with his gut and back hair on show. Lovely.
For those who do opt to keep some clothes on, it will become strikingly apparent that nobody can quite remember how to dress for summer. A few men will have seen Netflix’s makeover series Queer Eye and purchased a raft of floral short-sleeved shirts and cropped trousers to wear without socks. A few shrewd women will have spent months building a steady supply of warm-weather clothes, just in case this happened.
It being only April, though, we haven’t really had the need to think about a new-season wardrobe yet, so the dregs of our closets will rise to the surface: ill-fitting denim shorts, novelty flip flops, ancient maxi dresses, broken sunglasses, tie-dye T-shirts, elderly boat shoes and anything, anything linen.
Fresh air rules
If there is a spare square metre of this green and pleasant land to be had outdoors, you can bet it will be consumed by sun-worshippers (and that includes roundabouts). Parks in cities will be clogged with huge groups of young people, most of whom will be leaving scorch-marks in the ground with their barbecues, flinging Frisbees in faces and attempting to remember the rules of rounders. Once they discover the nearest lido, though, they’ll be gone.
At the pub, people would rather drink down alleyways, on the side of kerbs, in doorways and amid clouds of passive smoke than – heaven forbid – anywhere That’s unless the pub has a roof, of course. Rooftop parties are everywhere in 2018, so let’s hope you aren’t scared of heights.
In the office, the same will happen, regardless of its overzealous air conditioning. Tea rounds will be replaced by Magnum rounds, even if all you really want is a tea. Your suddenly tieless boss will insist the afternoon’s meetings are held on the dog poo-covered triangle of grass over the road. “It’s summer,” he’ll say, “let’s make the most of it while it lasts.” No work will be done outside, though, thanks to the din of passing ambulances, ice cream vans selling Flake 99s for more than 99p (outrageous), groups of teenagers playing “drill music” on their phones and actual drills being used on the nearby pavement.
And as you sit there, sweating, picking up grass stains, worrying about your hay fever and crosslegged in a probable red ant nest, a realisation will creep up: you miss the simplicity of winter. Tell no one.
The inevitable
In the end, we must remember TS Eliot’s opening words in The Waste Land: “April is the cruellest month”. No sooner has the summer arrived, then it will disappear. The weekend, when you finally have time to enjoy this mini-heatwave, looks cloudy and cooler. Next week showers are predicted. It will probably be snowing again the week after that. So don’t get used to it, is the message. This is Britain, after all.