Here Comes The Sun

When I vowed to post on every one of the last nine days of May, I was not expecting one of them to be astonishingly sunny.

The temperature is still only sixteen degrees, but that’s irrelevant. Global warming has given Ireland a succession of disappointing summers, so when we get a cloudless day like today we go absolutely mental. People rush down stony beaches to hurl themselves into a still freezing sea, like someone getting into a shower five seconds after they have turned the hot water on.

Men show off horrendous legs in horrendous shorts. Women forego tights to wear open-toed shoes with red-painted toenails peeping from them. Everyone eats their own weight in ice-cream.

And people have barbecues, the chance to swap meat cooked thoroughly and safely in your kitchen for the same meat burnt in spots over an open fire.

While I have done none of the above, I have unashamedly slept Sunday afternoon away in a sun-lounger in the back garden. I am now slightly pink (rather like barbecued chicken normally is), but I don’t care.

After all, the Pink Panther is probably the coolest person on the planet.