Irish courtesy meets stiff response

UPON our return from Germany and the Czech Republic we were immediately grateful that we lived in Ireland where the temperature, as we drove west from Cork Airport, was 17.5°C.

The evening before, sitting under the trees in Munich’s central square and enjoying a traditional dinner of sausages, sauerkraut and beer, I found myself shivering despite having a fleece-lined jacket zipped up to the chin and an incongruous sunhat to protect my naked head from hypothermia.

We are, I say once again, blessed to live on this temperate isle, never frozen (except, mildly, this winter) and never burnt dry by the sun. It is no wonder we are so amiable.