The following article first appeared in the Manx Advertiser (roughly about the time the dry spell came to an abrupt halt…)
It’s fair to say that July has been, as they remark in the weather trade, a hot one.
There are various annual clues that the summer is upon us. The school holidays for one and MHKs telling you that, even though Tynwald doesn’t sit until October, it’s still going to be a very busy time for them.
In recent years, however, the arrival of summer has rarely been marked by a sustained period of very hot, dry weather.
Except this year, that is. Even if the forecast has taken a turn for the worse and it’s raining by the time you read this. The memory of the soaring Celsius will still be fairly fresh in your mind.
Apart from the temperature, there are other indications that we have been enjoying what, at least in Manx terms, is a heatwave.
Vests. Suddenly, this undergarment is deemed acceptable outer wear by men of all ages. This is despite the fact that it is not a good look on anyone.
The smell of burning meat. Someone must have theorised that, in hot weather, the dangers of food poisoning reduce dramatically. It seems to be the only reasonable explanation as to why barbecues are so popular. (Let’s be honest, the main reason is that if you have a barbecue, it legitimises your desire to drink cans of lager in your back garden during the hours of daylight.)
Wishing you were back at school. Only because when you were at school and it was really hot, sometimes the teacher let you go and do your work on the playing fields. Strangely, when you make the same suggestion to your office line manager, it is greeted with an indignant snort, before they go off for an extraordinarily long lunch hour and come back looking a little more tanned than they did in the morning.
Sales of Manx honey sky rocket. Given that the Manx seasons seem to go from the depth of winter to the height of summer with barely a sneeze in between, it is only when it’s too late that you recall that one of the suggested ways to stave off hay fever is to eat honey from local bees. You’ll go out and buy another jar, only to come home and find you’ve got 20 others stashed away from the previous years when, by the time you remembered to buy some, summer was over.
Follow Paul on Twitter: @Norbertsdad
Previous Manx Advertiser columns by Paul:
How to survive the summer holidays
Some Tynwald Day facts you may not have been aware of
The rules of the doctors’ waiting room
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Paul Speller 