Second Helpings

Rising Heat

Dare I believe summer has actually arrived in England?

Around the middle of last week temperatures started to rise, cloud lessened and the strong winds which have been a feature of this year subsided. I went on a lovely eight mile walk as part of the Byron Pilgrimage last Thursday, which was actually warm, sunny and enabled us to sit outside for lunch. A novel experience indeed.

Since then each day has seen a warmer temperature than the day beforehand and by Sunday it was seriously hot by our standards.

But I think only in England would this be cause for panic and problems. In the winter one snowflake causes chaos on the roads, school closures and disruption to public transport. A few days of rain and we declare flood zones. Two weeks ago the grandmonster's Sports Day was cancelled due to wet grass which was too slippery and yesterday it was cancelled again due to the heat. That must be a first. It must have been all of 72 degrees and quite cloudy for a large part of the day.

I'm all for being cautious and not taking risks where the health of children is concerned, but really is it so risky to allow our little ones a bit of sunshine? Unless my memory is distorted I remember playing outside every single day in the summer holidays and never coming to much harm as far as I'm aware. We'd spend hours at outdoor swimming pools which sadly don't exist here any longer and sit on the streets drawing pictures with sticks in the melting tarmac wearing no factor fifty suncream. When I was a teacher many moons ago I remember days when heavy snow or glorious sunshine meant abandoning lessons and going out onto the fields to make the most of these conditions. Is it any wonder there's concern over the return of rickets and scurvy when children are not allowed to absorb a safe amount of natural vitamins from sunshine? Health and safety gone mad in my humble opinion.

The English are renowned for talking about the weather a great deal, but it strikes me we'll soon be famous for cancelling all activities due to heat/rain/wind/snow/fog and any other conditions.

I for one will take my life in my hands and enjoy this rare sunny spell at every available opportunity. I've always wanted to live dangerously.