Summer is on the way ... just as winter kicks in

Nights when there’s nothing better than kicking back in your Crocs, sipping a long cool glass of Irn-Bru Extra and wiping the sweat from your forehead as the blazing sun – still so high in the sky even at this late hour – pummels away at Grangemouth as if the town had just spilt its pint.

And those scorching blowtorch days when you swear you can smell hot tar melting even when there appears to be none in the vicinity, when socks become optional but frowned upon and your nose fries to a pretty shade of distressed pink – not through snottery exposure to extreme cold, but from absorbing the sun’s wonderfully warm and harmful rays.

Afternoons when Moosh the pug starts rasping like a Black & Decker saw when he even thinks about moving around in our microwave of a back door and when my wee boy’s hair turns from blonde to white despite the fact he’s wearing his latest baseball cap to protect his barnet.

When summer finally does come along to tantalise and paralyse us for that one sublime week of the year, my increasingly hot and irritable thoughts always tend to stray to those dark winter nights when I’m wrapped up cosy watching the American football on the telly with a lukewarm can of Irn-Bru Extra and enjoying some steaming nourishment from a chicken and mushroom pot noodle.

And obviously when the leaves start to shrivel up and die in autumn I find myself pining for those damp yet crisp morning dew days of spring when things seem to be just that bit more green and alive.

Seasonally speaking, I’m never chuffed.