On a day when the weather finally appears to have broken I find myself in one of those office discussions you can’t win. This morning the usual tirade against the unfairness of our nation’s over enthusiastic rainfall has been momentarily swapped for sulky mouthed speeches to the effect that it’s too hot, the pollen count is too high, everyone is a mass of blisters due to ill-fitting summery footwear; all a sweaty huff of rash and sunburn. The flip-flop slip slap on office carpet is annoying some while the incessant whirring of a distant grass trimmer proves to be the urban vuvuzela of the soul to the rest.
And my meteorological delight is not going down at all well.
I am an unashamed fan of hot weather. I love it all – the smell of warm concrete and that slight pebbled graze you get on the back of your thighs from sitting on it on long summer evenings in light cotton dresses. Sun tightened skin and damp hairlines, baked earth under bare feet and the unexpected unseen thistle in the otherwise perfect lawn. And those summers when we were kids; licking dried ice-cream off the back of our hands and tasting sweat and sun cream. Poking tar bubbles on roads with bits of sticks and getting it all over your sandals. Blue Mr Freeze stained mouths and forgetting your cardie outside all night where you’d used it as a goal post.
Horrified at the office negativity and their ungrateful responses to the good weather I slump off back to my desk. Amazing how a change of a few degrees can cause such vehement discussion. Warm weather – another great divider of humankind, where do you stand?
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
I love it. Hayfever, blisters, sticky suncreamed hands and all. Although I could do without the constant sight of pasty male torso along the Grand Canal.
What? You had suncream when you were a kid? I had… baby oil. *Sizzle*
Wholeheartly agree, the weather though a much put down conversational subject is…as i have always maintained a very very…very (three very’s, thats passion) oh no thats four very’s and that is positively continental in the passion stakes…hold on i’ve lost my thread
Oh yeah, the weather is a highly emotive subject and i now understand why half the people around me are acting in a such bizarre manner compared to usual. Thank you
Well written
I love all Irish weather and am extremely grateful to live in this mild, half-hearted climate. On a sunny day the Irish countryside can look just amazing.
“Foreign” heat, on the other hand, the kind of heat almost all other places get in summer, I find oppressive. That’s just the word for it – oppressive – because it makes me feel heavy, exhausted, slow and dumb. I’m like one of the trolls from Terry Pratchett that is only intelligent in the cold. The hottest an Irish summer gets is hot enough for me.
like your flip-flop slip slap! i’ll remember that one
hmmmmm .. heat .. you just made it so very appealing .. it can be seductive .. if you let yourself give in to it .. the quiet of sunshine .. it’s calming soothing effect
on a regular day tho- i’d go with john and paul
… when the sun shines
they slip into the shade
and sip their lemonade
when the sun shines…
rain- i don’t mind
i guess i like getting wet out there, preferably in a warm summer downpour, as much as i like the steam that rises up from the earth after it, and the gorgeous colors everything takes on in the renewed sunlight…
cheers jude- good call
I’m originally from the US and I was talking with an American friend who also lives here and I was telling her that I couldn’t believe that when the temperature drops a few degrees, everybody starts complaining that it’s bitter cold. Conversely, she couldn’t get over how when the temperature rises a few degrees, everybody starts wilting in the sun.
‘Cos that’s not how Irish weather is supposed to be! We’re stenothermal organisms – only able to function in a narrow range of temperatures. No extremes for us – it’s ‘mild’ and ‘soft’ all the way.
Im with you, the weather is amazing and I passed a tar bubble the other day and would have bashed it if it wasnt for the lack of twigs
Haven’t seen a tar bubble yet, but i can see lots of twigs. Perhaps this tar to twig ratio is causing the clement weather?
Ahh those wonderful tar bubbles! Great for gluing icecream sticks together to make incredibly dangerous flying machines.
The image of the cardie left out all night gave me some lovely memories!! thank you!
I love hot weather, but prefer when I can enjoy it poolside with book-in-hand. Having to go to work in it when unaccustomed to the tropical temperatures (and with our air-condtioning broken at work!) is another thing – but I still appreciate the fine weather and am glad we are having such a good run of it. I do think though, that as it is so rare that we are fortunate to have such lovely warm sunny days as these, everything should shut down during them, just like ‘snow days’ and no-one should have to work!
I love the description of “baked earth under bare feet”. Very hot weather is all very well, but I can usually take only so much of it before I need to recover in the shade for a while, or at least supply my own in the form of a brimmed hat.
Living in Ireland and bitching about good weather seems a bit contrary! I think the complaining comes from a combination of (1) Irish people’s need to talk about the weather — I do it too — and (2) the need to complain about something. Anything.
Fair weather is an interesting topic of conversation, but how about those “office discussions you just can’t win” that sounds like an interesting topic of conversation. Why do they occur? Why do people get into them? What needs are going unsatisfied in individuals that leads to those situations?
Cause it would appear to me that just like the fair weather, those serve as another “great divider of mankind.”