From pizza ovens to hot tubs - 13 things you won't be able to get your hands on this summer
The perfect storm of consumer meltdown is upon us for summer 2021. We’re all stuck in Ireland and are searching for ways to entertain ourselves, but Covid-19, Brexit, and a container ship that was jammed in the Suez Canal have joined forces to make it trickier than usual for shops to get stock.
Irish people also love a bandwagon, so if there’s a new hobby or trend, we’ll jump on board and buy every single thing associated with it.
Speaking of boards, the French sports-goods superstore, Decathlon, announced in May that sales of surfboards and kayaks in their Ballymun store were the highest of their 1,700 shops around the world. See? We love a fad. Here are the things for which you’ll have to sell your granny to get your hands on this summer.
2021 is set to be the summer of inviting people over to your garden and pretending that you own a pizzeria in Naples.
You have a barbecue? Great, how ’90s of you. What you really need this June is a wood-fired pizza oven.
We’ve heard of competitions among neighbours for the best pizza dough, and we know people that are bulk-ordering pizza boxes for that authentic restaurant feel.
Sadly, if your Ooni oven is not on order already, the chances of getting one for this summer are slim.
Imagine the shame of having to make a pizza in your normal oven. How embarrassing.
One of the things we missed most during lockdowns one, two, and 48 was German-retailer, middle-aisle shopping, so when Lidl’s egg chair was deemed an essential purchase and went on sale at the end of April, queues formed from 5.30am in carparks all over the country.
Stock of the €219.99 chair was limited and, sadly, as for almost everything this year, many people were left disappointed that they didn’t get their hands on one and will have to spend their summer in regular chairs.
At first glance, there’s some stunning garden furniture available this summer, but when you get to the checkout, it turns out that it’s actually available to pre-order and will be ready for delivery in October.
Furthermore, that corner sofa, fire pit, and sunshade sail you smugly ordered in March got trapped in the queue, behind the ship the Ever Given in the Suez Canal, and are, literally, still on the slow boat from China.
Don’t worry, they will still get here in time for the communion, which has been rescheduled to September, anyway — that child better not grow between now and then, because they’ll still be wearing that suit.
Do you even live in a three-bedroom, semi-detached, suburban house if you don’t have a Pinterest-worthy, wooden pergola strung up with festoon lights?
Gerry the builder will definitely be able to fire one together for you, but it will cost five grand and he’ll be able to start it in August.
If we can’t go to Portugal for two weeks in August, we’re going to bring the Algarve to us.
Long, lazy summer evenings spent out in the garden, beer in hand, bum in the hot tub, sound pretty perfect.
While actual hot tubs are currently quite tricky to get your hands on, there are some excellent inflatable ones on offer.
Just be careful not to burst it while you’re in it; you don’t want to have to call Declan from down the road to pull you out of a semi-deflated Jacuzzi in your sodden bikini.
At this stage, the only half-decent family rooms available are in hotels on the roundabout on the ring road.
No view, no quiet, but, lookit, aren’t you at least out of your own house?
If you’re laughing at the people trying to get a hotel room because you always fill the car with sausages and go self-catering, be warned: Every cottage, Airbnb, shed, and barn within 10 miles of a coastline is booked up and has been since February.
Luckily, Ireland’s not that big, so if you have to book the last self-catering accommodation in the country and it’s in Laois, it’ll take you less than two hours to get to the seaside and your sandwiches will barely be soggy by the time you get there.
If you like a bottle of Bordeaux or cool glass of Chablis, you better get stocked up. A late frost decimated the grape harvest in parts of France this year and people in the know are clearing the shelves before wine disappears and prices rocket.
If you thought that famous Aldi rosé was hard to find last year, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Don’t be that person who waits until a heatwave is forecast to try and find a fun kids’ pool.
Be like Fionnuala up the road, who told you about the amazing one she bought on sale in February that has slides and doors and a built-in lifeguard.
You just know she has an electric pump, too. She’ll be happy to lend it to you, but is it worth giving her the satisfaction?
You want your children to have a fun-filled summer, but you also really want them out of the house!
Summer camps booked up quickly this year and you’ll take any Covid-19-compliant camp you can get your hands on now.
Folk dancing in a forest? Sure, your soccer-obsessed 12-year-old will love it.
As if hospitals haven’t been under enough pressure this year, there is a new craze for roller skating.
We’re not talking kids here, we’re talking adults, who should know better.
Honestly, if you took part in a trend the first time around, you should be banned forever trying it again.
At least we’re still working from home. It’s hard to get one of those boot casts on the bus.
What goes hand in hand with surfboards and sea swimming? Wetsuits, of course, and we’re running out of stock.
It’s pretty understandable: If you’re going to do all of your holiday water sports in the freezing Atlantic, you definitely need protection from frostbite on your extremities!
A quick look online shows that sizes are limited and if there’s one item of sportswear you want to make sure fits correctly, it’s a wetsuit.
Remember: Too loose is just as bad as too tight when it comes to something that can fill with water!
Grannies, granddads, godparents, aunts, uncles, friends, acquaintances, and every teenage girl you’ve ever met will be in hot demand for childcare duties for the next few months.
While, usually, it’s not too hard to find someone to mind your children so you can enjoy a night out, this summer, everyone is ‘out out’ and they have no time for your darlings.
Watch, as bars and restaurants fill up with pensioners delighted their children are grown up!
Kettle bells, badminton nets, table tennis tables, and yoga mats are all hot commodities this summer.
It’s great that we’ve gotten into home fitness during the pandemic, but if you don’t already have your own personal gym, you might have to do a HIIT class with two bottles of wine and a bag of flour.
Luckily, you’ll have that from your pizza-making and French-grape hoarding!
A few things would make this summer perfect, but may just be a little out of reach and so will have to go on next year’s dream board.
We’re fantasising about a suntan — the type you get from 10 days on a package holiday eating paella — and drinking cold beer on a busy square. We don’t need 10 days. A long weekend with friends or a partner would do, but with little or no guidance on babysitters and with grandparents out of practice, getting away without the children might be on the 2022 list.
We’d also love two days dancing in a field, and we hope that, by the time everything opens up, some canny music promoter will have created a new festival for people in their 40s who want to relive Witnness, or even Féile.
Comfortable, blow-up mattresses, ’90s dance classics, and an indie tent featuring a reformed Oasis battling Blur for the headline slot: Those are the things of middle-aged dreams.
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