Here’s to summer of 2014 — bring it on

Costa del Ireland. We usually have a country full of rain, cloud and lack of-to-no sun. Nowadays, that’s a whole new concept as locals right across Ireland have spotted this yellow thing in the sky called the sun.

Heatwave 2014 has truly begun.

Pasty white milk bottles are on show and the red headed tomatoes are being flashed. As a Barcelona woman said to me ‘Oh, you are Irish so you burn’. Like all good things, (yes I hate being negative) it must come to an end probably soon.

So, I urge everyone who buys the paper to chill out, read it outside. Tell your young kids to go out with friends and go have fun. Or, if you are a World Cup addict like me, bring the television outside and hang out outside.

Like everything here in Ireland people will take advantage. Just before writing this I saw on Twitter gardaí were confiscating alcohol as it’s illegal to drink on the beach.

In fairness, with young kids running around I, personally, would find it awkward to crack open a beer with little boys and girls running around.

I’m also urging everyone to put on sun cream. As a part-time ginger (not ginger hair, just ginger skin tone), I’ve come to the acceptance that I would probably burn in the rain, so throw on a bit of factor 30 and suck it up. Unfortunately, the realisation has hit that I’m not a tanner, so the factor 50 had to be purchased.

Another problem, people going out swimming in the river, be careful with the strong current and to be honest, if I were you, I would not be getting in at all. If you are, please don’t have alcohol consumed, one third of drownings are alcohol related.

To my fellow sports nuts, I can’t wait to be going back to matches getting the old GAA buzz and then having the World Cup. It’s a summer of sport, very exciting times and hopefully there’ll be silverware coming Leeside — I’m not a bit biased.

Here’s to the summer 2014 will have in store, post Leaving Cert happiness and friendship and wild times. This will hopefully be a good summer everywhere but we must go out and enjoy it and do that responsibly. So let’s all raise our pretend glasses and say cheers to a summer full of happiness, laughs and memories.

As F Scott Fitzgerald said in The Great Gatsby... ‘“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”