Here's Johnny !

So, the totally and utterly gorgeous Mr Depp is available again and on the market! This, after months of him and Vanessa Paradis denying rumours of a split and presenting a united front playing happy families.

Of course the fact that he is available doesn’t mean I can have him, even though he doesn’t know what he is missing out on. For one thing, The Hubby might have something to say about it. And for another thing, I did read somewhere that despite having cheekbones to die for and come to bed eyes, he isn’t actually that nice to be close to because

a)    He smokes and so his breath smells like an old ash tray and

b)    He doesn’t believe in using deodorant and thinks a man’s natural smells are best.

Well to be honest if that’s what Vanessa has put up with for the past decade I’m not surprised that finally she has had enough and they have gone their separate ways. Even the French have these days discovered that you don’t stop stinking just by chucking scent into your arm pits and actually other people have pretty decent olfactory glands and prefer you to be a little more fragrant.

There is no escaping the fact that the lovely Johnny is a little odd and always has been (anyone who makes that many films with Tim Burton must go a bit strange, after all). Everything from his style of dress to his manner of speaking shrieks ‘individual’ and presumably anyone who doesn’t give a flying f**k what people think about the obvious eccentricities also doesn’t care about other more personal and potentially more offensive conventions of communal living. Not that Vanessa herself was normal, with a history of eating disorders and a deliberately vague ‘am I on something’ approach to life.

There will be a queue of women waiting for Johnny to notice them because he is undeniably (to a casual, long distance observer at least) charming, handsome and bohemian. And he is rich, something which is never a disadvantage when husband/boyfriend/casual shag hunting. Not only is he rich, he is obscenely, filthy rich. The trouble is he doesn’t really like spending it, preferring the simple life in the countryside. Well bugger that! If you’ve got all those millions you might as well enjoy them instead of tramping round looking like you dressed in the dark in someone else’s cast offs which ought to have been given to Oxfam. And it would be nice to live somewhere civilised with decent plumbing (ie not France).

At least now we know where we are and the gossip magazines can have a field day papping any unfortunate female that happens to be seen anywhere with him. And why do these celebs put the public through this ridiculous charade of unity when it is obvious for all to see that things aren’t good and they would be much happier calling it a day. Sometimes, of course, it’s because they have children (Johnny and Vanessa have two, called Lily Rose and Jack, I believe) and they don’t want their kids to see their warring parents splashed all over the tabloids, but surely it would just be better to split quietly and if possible amicably, sort out your arrangements and move on without fuelling the speculation by denying it.

At any rate, his newly single status will make the lusting in front of the movie all the more enticing because he is available, and there’s nothing like an available heart throb to make the pulse race a little faster because you never know, there is an infinitesimal chance.

Never say never, that’s what I say!

I'm back! Have you missed me?

I am back at work this week after two weeks in the sun.

Despite Greece’s economic woes and the very real suffering of the vast majority of its people at the moment (anyone who saw Panorama last night will hopefully have been horrified at the effect the austerity measures are having on the Greek in the street) it remains a magical place to be and we had a wonderful time. We had wall to wall sunshine with temperatures averaging about 35 degrees in the day and 27 degrees at night (yes, we do have air con!). We did nothing for two weeks; the fortnight was incredible relaxing and the country remains vivid and full of life.

In contrast, the UK is dull, grey and to be honest, pretty grim. Yes, we do pageantry very well and the Jubilee weekend before we went away was marvellous, but when all the brocade and red coats have been put away this country seems nothing like as alive as many of its European counterparts. It is stiff, formal and varying shades of two colours only, grey and green. And is it just me, or does anyone else get sick of green? Green fields, green trees, green hedgerows, green mould on the garden wall and so on.

I like my landscapes to be shades of gold, brown and silver with splashes of colourful brilliance. Last week I was looking at towering brown and black mountains which fell down to a sea the shade of blue you see on a Jay’s wing, with frothy white foam where the two met. The olive tree leaves shone with a majestic silvery dark green where they caught the light, and several sported modest cream coloured flowers that were hidden amongst their branches like a shy maiden aunt flaunting the hem of her lace knickers. Oleander blossomed in flamboyant shades of pink, red and orange along the roadsides which kicked up clouds of golden dry dust when anything drove over them. Once or twice, I saw the iridescent green and gold of a lizard as it scuttled underneath a stone at our approach.

As we flew back towards Gatwick on Sunday, the colours became more and more muted. As we left France and flew across the English Channel, the cloud drew in and eventually we were flying through a visually impenetrable mass of white mist, which gave way to a ceiling of high grey cloud which has barely lifted since. We came from 35 degrees of heat to 11 degrees of murk. I hate it; I always do.

Familiar readers of this blog will know how much I dislike still having to work and how much I would love to go and live in Greece. As a country it may be in for a rough time over the next few years, but to me it is still the best place on earth and frankly if I must be poor, I’d rather be poor in the sun.

Of course, returning to work I have been subjected to the usual comments of “Have you been away?” due to my relatively light tan, which is due to the fact that I smother myself in factor 50 sunscreen because I burn, which then peels off instead of going brown. It would take me several weeks of short bursts of sunbathing (by which I mean no more than an hour a day) to go anywhere near the walnut colour some people manage to achieve in a fortnight, although I remain convinced that often that is sprayed on or is out of a bottle.

I am now counting down the weeks until I can go back again, which is late September. I have three months to make the best of it at home, which won’t be all bad with some nice things on the calendar. But already without the sun I am feeling down and all my niggling minor health issues are returning (tennis elbow, snuffly nose and more) and September cannot come soon enough.

Aches and pains - forty love!

I have developed tennis elbow!

Stop laughing! No, I mean it, stop it! I really have, which is ironic seeing as I haven’t picked up a tennis racquet for about 40 years. I have a searing pain on the outer edge of my elbow which is worse with repetitive activity. I looked it up on the internet and in a fantastic medical encyclopaedia we have, which I got free with tokens from about a million editions of the Daily Mail a few years ago.

By the way, it’s a huge mistake to get one of those medical books. You find yourself looking up every ache and pain you experience and convincing yourself that you have all sorts of life threatening conditions. You go to the doctor’s with a small amount of knowledge and try to tell them their job, which must not only be incredibly irritating but also dangerous. You do it to your family too, diagnosing their ailments with an air of authority which is quite misplaced.

Anyway, I do, genuinely, have tennis elbow. And it hurts. Apparently you get it from repetitive movements normally associated with strenuous activity and sports (The Hubby nearly fell off his chair laughing when I told him that bit). It can be painful and there is very little the medics can do about it beyond a bit of physio, and to be honest I can’t really be bothered with that seeing as you can get all the appropriate exercises off the internet on the NHS site. I certainly don’t want to claim on my insurance for it, and if I wait for the NHS to give me physio I will grow old a die first.

Everything I have read says that usually it gets better on its own, so I will just have to try and do the exercises, strap the damn thing up with Tubigrip and get on with it. And it is a good excuse not to have to carry things, meaning I can get The Hubby and the kids to actually clear their own plates and fetch their own stuff instead of being waited on (to be fair, The Hubby doesn’t expect to be, but the kids can be phenomenally lazy).

When you get some minor ailment like this it is amazing how debilitating and limiting it can be, and you realise how much we take the strength and flexibility of our limbs for granted. And what makes it worse is there is nothing outwardly to show for it – no plaster cast, often no bandage, no bruising and no blood. A slight knock on the tube or train and the pain is extraordinary – how can such a small sinewy part of our body as the end of a tendon cause so much trouble?

When I told The Hubby I had tennis elbow, his amusement was quite unseemly and unsupportive. He is of the view that I am falling apart at the seams due to my slothful lifestyle and will be able to leave my body to medical science, where they will use it for research into couch potatoes who eat too much chocolate and drink too much wine. That is an assessment I consider grossly unfair, seeing as I do everything in the house and lots of the gardening since he isn’t there because he is toiling away 60 hours a week in some boring committee room at work and he never sees the effort that goes in. The house is clean, the garden immaculate, the household admin is done, social events are arranged, there is food in the fridge and clean clothes in the wardrobe. It is true that when he gets home I am usually on the sofa with a glass of wine and bar of Dairy Milk, but that is often about 10pm and I have only sat down an hour or so before.

I am getting fed up to the back teeth (a part of my body, by the way, which has given me no trouble of late) of having minor ailments, and the day when I get up and nothing hurts or is injured cannot come soon enough. I keep promising myself that I will put an exercise regime in place to get fit, and something always seems to get in the way and prevent it. Therefore my fitness regime (of which more in another blog to come soon) has not really progressed.

When I get back from my holiday, I have two months with no commitments. I will hopefully, by then, be feeling wholly fit and will be able to get back walking and to the gym. Hopefully and hope, as they say, springs eternal!

We’re all goin’ on a summer holiday…

So sang Sir Cliff Richard in the halcyon days of the sixties when a summer holiday was your only holiday and was usually a week in the sun (hopefully) at Bognor, although for most people it didn’t involve a double decker bus! If it rained, you made the best of it and sat on the beach in your anorak, and if you were one of the lucky few with shed loads of cash, you took yourself off to France or what sounded like an exotic Mediterranean island such as Capri, or you went for a fortnight instead of just a week. Holidays any further afield, or for longer, were at that time strictly for the jet set and for movie stars only.

Despite the fact that the destinations have changed – become more far flung, exotic and needless to say more expensive – and the range of activities we undertake has expanded to include annual skiing holidays, various other sports and ‘activity holidays’ such as cookery schools and painting retreats, and also that we probably all have more holidays and leisure time now than we did fifty years ago, we still look forward to and anticipate our main summer holidays as much as ever.

We are very lucky in that we bought our house in Greece about six or seven years ago when the exchange rate was good and we could afford it – we certainly couldn’t now. As such, we can buy cheap flights as soon as they are released and have been known to get return flights to Iraklio in early summer for less than £80. We try to get out there three or four times a year, and today we are jetting off on our annual summer fortnight together (other holidays are sometimes taken on our own due to work commitments). My daughter, who lives with us, is looking forward to having the run of the house in return for feeding my cats and watering my plants.

I can’t wait. We fly from Gatwick in the afternoon and we should be there about 11pm, local time. That means we can nip out for a nightcap at the local kafenion before tucking in for the night and so be fresh and ready to sleep on the beach the next day.

The first week of any fortnight is always down time. Usually, we are so tired that all we want to do is eat, sleep, sunbathe and relax. By the second week, we are ready to do a bit more and this time we are thinking of exploring the south of the island a little more and visiting the fourth Minoan Palace on Crete at Phaestos. We have been to all the others  at Knossos, Malia and Zakros. By the way, don’t bother going to Zakros – it’s a horrendous drive over virtual goat tracks to see something which is, in essence, just a pile of stones now, and there’s neither a café nor toilets. Anyway, getting to Phaestos will involve a fairly long drive and probably an overnight stay. On the way, we have also been recommended to visit a resort called Matala, which is meant to be spectacularly beautiful and very peaceful as it is off the usual tourist trail due to its remote location.

There are people that say to be “Don’t you get bored going back to the same place each time?” and to a certain extent I can see where they are coming from, but I must say the novelty of having my own house on a beautiful island in the Med hasn’t worn off and I don’t think it will for a while. While I am working, and while my leisure time is so precious (as is my time with The Hubby), it suits me fine to go back to a place with guaranteed weather, where I have my own stuff, I know where everything is, I understand how things work and I can relax as soon as I get on the plane. Yes, I would like to explore other places and go further afield as well as elsewhere in the UK, but for now I am perfectly happy thank you, and all that can wait until I am retired. We can fly to other countries from Athens as well as from London, and when we do come back to the UK to see family we can travel around too. So there’s no rush.

I am now going to shut down for a fortnight, but I will be making copious notes to inform various blogs when I get back. I have written several which will publish while I am away, so enjoy, and I will (metaphorically) see you all soon!

Back to reality, and long may she reign!

Well the Diamond Jubilee is well and truly over and we have all gone back to work after a wonderfully flag waving, patriotic weekend.

There’s nothing like a bit of national pride to cheer you up, is there? Watching the celebrations on the telly brought quite a lump to the throat, and in particular watching the poor old Queen on her own on Monday and Tuesday after her husband went into hospital was quite emotional. She looked so small and lonely, and I felt desperately sorry for her that in what should have been her greatest moment of celebration, she was alone (by the way, I gather from the tabloid press that one of the reasons she looked a little strained on Monday evening at the concert was because she was wearing ear plugs to keep out the excessive noise!).

A few people have, of course, carped about the cost of the whole thing and questioned why we are celebrating the longevity of an archaic institution which has a shield of incredible wealth and privilege and is simply there by right of birth and not by any elected public will.

But the fact is that it is a whole lot better than the alternatives, and the monarchy has a massive majority of public support. The last time a proper poll was taken (by which I mean one carried out by MORI and not some half arsed thing done by The Sun or Daily Mail with about 20 people) about 80% of people supported the Queen herself and over 70% supported the monarchy as an institution.

The Queen’s face was on newspapers all over the world this weekend, and many countries are envious of the wonderful public persona that she presents and the fact that she is such a tireless ambassador for this country. She has worked hard for her country for sixty years completely selflessly simply to foster its interests internationally and support her elected government (why on earth otherwise would you want to sit through endless children’s choirs, native dances, posh dinners and boring speeches and get dressed up in posh clothes when you would much rather slump around in trackie bottoms and a t-shirt watching Corrie and eating beans on toast). She has tried to bring up her family (with varying degrees of success) with a similar work ethic and an acknowledgement that although they are in their positions by birth, they owe a payment to the nation in return.

I for one am grateful that we do not live in a republic. There are countless examples all over the world where republics have gone bad and where presidents have assumed absolute power at the expense of their people. Even in a democratically elected presidency (such as America) there are countless abuses of power because there are no controls and checks on the powerful relationship of the President with the security services who do his/her bidding and are themselves totally unaccountable.

Last year, as I have blogged before, The Hubby and I went round Buckingham Palace and did the tourist thing. He was reluctant – not sure why, I know he’s not really an ardent royalist but I don’t think he is a closet republican – but we both thoroughly enjoyed it. And the information given out about the royals certainly made us think more about the value they add to the UK, which is considerable.

Anyway, I joined in the flag waving this weekend with enthusiasm, although I had to pretend with the actual waving thing since no one had actually bought me a Union Jack or any bunting. It was all really nice, which is an inadequate word but somehow appropriately warm and fuzzy, and it was a joy to see so many people packed into London all with smiles on their faces and just there to soak up the atmosphere and be supportive.

So long live the Queen, and much longer may she reign!

Out of the mouths of babes....

We looked after my three and a half year old grand daughter at the weekend and had to go shopping, so took her round the supermarket with us. Ruby likes the supermarket and especially likes going in the trolley, although prefers to stand rather than sit in the kiddie seat and commentates loudly on everything as we go round.

She also likes to be able to reach out and grab what she likes and has an eagle eye for anything with Peppa Pig or Dora the Explorer on it, from napkins to novelty crisps.

The supermarket is very crowded on a Saturday, usually with elderly people who have all week to do their shopping but choose to clutter up the shops and get in the way of the rest of us on Saturdays and Sundays. They are slow, stop unexpectedly and spread themselves across the aisles with gay abandon.

Anyway, we are going round doing our shopping, with Ruby saying every time I put something in the trolley "Over there Nanny, don't bury me". We are walking up the bread aisle at a reasonable pace and she is at this point standing at the front of the trolley like Kate Winslet at the bow of the ship in Titanic. In front of us is a rather tubby middle aged couple debating the merits of granary versus sliced white, with their trolley at right angles to the shelves. Suddenly, in a penetrating voice which must have been heard outside on the other side of the car park, I hear Ruby scream "Wait, Nanny, wait. That fat man is in the way. 'Scuse me, fat man".

I don't know how I stifled the urge to squeal with laughter, but somehow I did. Muttering "Excuse me" as the startled couple made way and everyone else looked round, I scuttled past at record speed to find The Hubby in the next aisle choosing breakfast cereal, where between snorts of amusement I relayed the story to him. I know I should have told her off, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to - he was fat, and he was in the way, and to be honest I wish I was allowed to say things like that with such frankness.

Only small children can get away with it, more's the pity, and the old saying "Out of the mouths of babes" couldn't be more true. There are many times when I wish I could just say something honest instead of skirting round awkward subjects or telling white lies, as it's all so much effort to remember what you have said if it isn't the truth. And the tragic thing is I can lie with remarkable skill and retention if I need to, but I never want to (well, very rarely). How many times has a friend said to you "Does my bum look big in this" (or the equivalent for another part of their anatomy), and after a suitable pause you have said "No, of course not" when really of course it does. Also quite common is "Do you like this dress/skirt/top/whatever" when it's actually perfectly hideous but you say quickly "Yes, lovely". Similarly, I wish I could manage my staff like Alan Sugar in the Apprentice (does anyone else think it was better when they could say 'yes, Suralan' instead of as now 'yes, Lord Sugar'?). It would be wonderful to be able to sit opposite a cretinous member of staff who is playing up and say to them "Shut it, you idiot, I don't want to hear any more from you. You're fired".

Small children are remarkably honest about anything you discuss with them, particularly your appearance. It really is very refreshing. Sadly, very soon society will knock it out of them and they will become as two faced and repressed as the rest of us. It's such a shame.

Why am I so busy?

I had thought once I got Midsummer night's Dream out of the way, I would have a relaxed few weeks and be less busy before going away. I had thought I would run up to my holiday tired and ready for it but not quite as stressed as usual. My timetable and commitments looked manageable.

Well I should have known better. The play finished about ten days ago and I haven't stopped since. This week looks manic as well, some of it nice social stuff but much of it just chores and jobbing. It's ludicrous! To make things worse, I am doing everything at home virtually single handed because The Hubby is working 60 hour weeks on some special project and is never here. When he is here briefly, he is so knackered he's good for nothing!

I think it's a symptom of life to day that if you are working, your life just becomes increasingly hectic. Certainly my work environment is something my parents would never have recognised, coming from a more relaxed time without targets, pressures and budget cuts. Of course it is the relaxed lacksadaisical approach of the past that has landed so many of us in the poo now, so they are to blame in a way, but they were certainly healthier than us even if they were poorer.

The trouble is that the more we earn, the greater our commitments and expectations and so the harder we have to work to meet them and the less time we have for what we like and what is important. We earn a very big salary between us, but we have two houses (one here and one in Greece) five children and various other borrowings that have to be paid. Partly that's a result of a profligate few years when borrowing was easy, salaries went up regularly and inflation was relatively low, for which we are now paying the price. But it has left us in a position of having very few options to move forward and although we have a financial plan, if one of us lost our jobs we would have to take some radical and very difficult decisions.

You may have noticed that this blog has got a little more erratic recently, and that is just pressure of things to do and busyness. It's not that I've run out of things to say, just that I don't have time to write about them. Very soon, I am going away for two weeks and I had resolved to try and write a few blogs in advance, leaving them to self publish in my absence. I'll try to do about half a dozen, but bear with me if I don't get the chance.

In the meantime I am going to try and calm things down a bit so I am not totally exhausted getting on the plane. It would be nice to have the energy to enjoy my first week as well as crashing on the sun bed. What are the chances?

Children’s birthdays make me feel old!

Today is my oldest daughter’s birthday. She has her own daughter now, who this year will be four. She is now 24, and all that makes me feel about 124.

I don’t normally worry about my age. Yes, occasionally when I feel ill or a bit down I sink into my armchair and decide I am officially old, with all the aches and pains that go with it, but usually I still feel like I have a mental age of 30 and a physical age of 20. Both of which I think are the prime of life these days.

But occasions like grown up children’s birthdays really do make you think about your advancing years. Realistically, at 51 my life is probably at best half and at worse about three quarters over. If I’m really unlucky, I will get some awful disease in my fifties and go to my maker before I hit sixty. I will have been cheated, and will have achieved nothing I want to.

I have all sorts of plans for the next few decades, and I’m not ready to shuffle off this mortal coil any time soon. I want to write more, either professionally or for my own entertainment, I want to paint more for my own pleasure (arty farty paintings, not DIY, and abstract not real stuff as I have no sense of perspective) not because I’m any good at it but because I enjoy it, I want to travel and I want to go and live in the sun and have a good few years there. And I want to stop work, because I hate it and it’s such a f*****g waste of time – no one cares and it makes no difference!

The Hubby is much more reluctant than I to make a life changing decision like living abroad, and his family background has been much more conservative than mine, so he will find it a bigger leap. And he loves his job, believing (poor deluded soul) that local government really does make a difference to people’s lives and isn’t actually full of incompetent, bigoted prats out for self aggrandisement. But with each advancing birthday the time left to us reduces and you only get one shot at things, there is no second bite at the cherry. So we need to grasp the nettle and take the plunge if we want to do something (I’m sure I could fit a few more clichés in there if I tried hard enough!).

My children are both adults now. By this summer, they will both have completed their degrees, hopefully successfully, and both will (also hopefully) be working and making their own way in life; in short, they will be independent. One of The Hubby’s boys is already living with his girlfriend and working full time, the other is just finishing his first year at Uni after working and travelling for a year, and the youngest is just starting his final year at college before going travelling and then setting up his own photography business with a mate. At least, that’s the plan. So in three years time, they will all be out there making their own way and we will have no ties beyond financial ones.

So depending upon what happens with work, pensions and Greece, there is nothing to stop us in somewhere between five to ten years time upping sticks and living abroad for most of the year. If we are to get there, a lot of hard work and a youthful outlook is needed, so I cannot afford to sit around moping that I am getting old. I could well have forty to fifty more years ahead of me and I have to be positive that I am going to make it.

I guess only time will tell.

Why are we such an unstylish bunch?

This week, the weather has been lovely. The sun has shone, the skies have been azure blue and cloudless, and the breeze has been gentle and southerly (ie warm!) in stead of the easterly or northerly blast we usually get from Siberia. It has almost been like being on holiday in the Med (but even this week it’s not quite warm enough!).

As soon as the sun shines, the British love to flash the flesh. All sorts of unsuitable clothing gets unearthed from the backs of our wardrobes where it moulders for fifty weeks of the year and we sally forth into the world wearing it no matter what it looks like. It is usually too tight, too short, and mostly too small. There is far too much mesh and lycra either for comfort or style, or if tight lycra isn’t your preferred style the tiered gypsy maxi dresses are so cavernous you could hide a small family of Bulgarians underneath them (or a large family of small Bulgarians - whichever). Mostly this clothing has been purchased in a moment of madness when we are wearing woollen stockings and a large pullover and the temperature has gone up unexpectedly by 20 degrees and we would do anything to be cooler (in the temperature sense naturally, not the sartorial one).

Why are we such an unstylish bunch? It isn’t the availability of stylish clothes, even for those on a budget. There are plenty of shops which whilst admittedly not being as cheap as Primarni, sell pretty good stuff at reasonable prices which don’t require you to take out a second mortgage to shop there. Yes, you can spend a fortune, but you don’t have to.

Perhaps it’s our desperation to be fashionable which makes us purchase these items regardless of weight or body shape just because some celebrity that is stick thin and lives on celery juice has been pictured wearing one in Hello or OK! magazine. Maybe we are just suckers for carefully targeted advertising? Or maybe we are just profligate with money? I don’t know, and I have a nasty suspicion that with me, it may be a little of each!

Each year I go shopping at about this time to refresh my summer wardrobe (I do the same in October for the winter stuff). Each year, I will have promised myself beforehand that I will have lost weight and be able to fit into at least one size smaller and have a greater choice of shops to go to (it’s amazing how many shops sell nothing over a size 16, and some a size 14, which is odd considering the average size of some of their customers!). Each year that doesn’t happen. Each year, I will promise myself that I will not purchase exclusively from Marks and Spencer but will shop until I drop and visit a range of establishments for a unique and exclusive range of outfits which will mark me out from the masses. Each year, because it’s the only place where I can guarantee to get something which fits, which covers up my ever expanding waistline and which stocks a range of colours and sizes, I end up going to Marks for the vast majority of stuff. 

Sadly, most of the UK populace seems not to give two hoots what they look like and consequently go out and buy the cheapest fashion look–a-like items they can, which is fine if, like my daughters, you are a skinny size six or size eight, but not if you are anything approaching a 14. I have seen some horrendous sights this week; girls dressed as though they were going to the beach but clearly heading for the office (if one of my staff had turned up wearing some of the outfits I have seen, I would have sent them home to get dressed), skirts which are basically wide belts, guys wearing cargo shorts so low slung they are virtually dangling from their crutch (have you ever had the urge to sneak up behind someone dressed like than and hoik their trousers up to waist level? I have!) and (usually) women wearing clothes that have been designed with someone 40 years younger and 4 dress sizes smaller in mind.

Don’t these people look in a mirror before they go out? Don’t they have any loved ones who will look at them and say “actually darling, that doesn’t look great”? Do they have any touch with reality at all? From looking at their outfits, you wouldn’t think so.

And you can’t blame the heat. You only have to go to France, Spain, Italy or even Greece to see the young women and men dress for a much hotter climate than ours with much less money but look much more stylish, and effortlessly so. To feel really inadequate, you go to Paris, where the women all look like they have just graced the front page of Vogue.

I think it must be the British desperation to catch some sun before it disappears behind a rain cloud again which makes us, quite simply, not care what we look like as long as we get a tan and the sunshine gives us much needed vitamin D. Did you know that 80% of the British population, and almost 100% of Scots, have vitamin D deficiency for nine months of the year because either they don’t get any sunshine, or when it does shine they are told to cover themselves up and protect themselves from it, in case it gives them cancer? That’s a scary statistic.

Now you will have to excuse me. The sun is shining, and I have a size 12 T-shirt I have been saving up for the last four years just waiting for such an occasion. I will need the rest of the day to squeeze into it!