Of summer and other tragedies....

As the title evidently suggests, I'm certainly not a big fan of summer. I never was, and I don't think that I can ever be, at least not until I can take the whole season off to welter in puddles of my own sweat on a beach.

I know summer is meant to be all about birds twittering, lots of sun, sea, sand and long days, but let's face it: for those of us who have to work, it's actually about wasps, sunburn, the sun rising before you even get to sleep, and twelve hour days organising humungous stands at trade fairs and activities during religious festas.

Parents also get the added luxury of kids at home climbing the walls and driving them crazy. In this day and age not taking kids to a water park every single day, or not buying them a new video game at least every week, is the equivalent of locking them up in prison cell. In fact if you don't, they would be very well within their rights to call social services on you.

My childhood summers were slightly different. Summer holidays meant one thing and one thing alone - heavy negotiations with my mother who prepared a never-ending list of daily chores for me to do, whilst I prepared a list of shenanigans that I wanted to get up to. Since she owned (and still does) exclusive rights to two secret weapons of mass destruction better known as the ‘because- I- said-so!' missile and the ‘because-I'm-your-mother-that's-why!' cannon, negotiations were always pretty tough. On the not so rare occasion she also pulled out the ‘you're-grounded-for-life' automatic-rifle.

With all the laws stacked up against me, the best summer deal that I ever managed to negotiate for myself was rather pathetic. It took weeks of diplomatic and not so diplomatic debates, hours of loud brawls, and a serious threat to my future womanhood, and still, all I managed to bargain were two beach days in return for five days of chores accompanied with undisputed obedience and overall politeness to all and sundry.

Other terms and conditions also applied of course, and a few more were added along the way. The bottom line was that any form of reluctance, grumbling, moaning, tardiness, or disobedience on my part, would automatically obliterate my beach days off the face of the earth, for the rest of my life, and any plans I might have had beyond that.

Now that I've freed myself of my mother's list of summer chores you'd think that I'd be chasing my summer shenanigans, but as luck would have it, my sadistic attempt to work 25 hour shifts for the past three years has finally pushed me over the edge. All I want to do now is to sit on my snug sofa, in my lovely air-conditioned living room, watch reruns of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond' and wallow in buckets of my own drool.

Just to put you in the picture, and to (hopefully) stop you from nagging me for not writing something more substantial about some political, social or religious drama, I will tell you what happened to me last night. I got home at midnight after yet another night at the crazy world of trade fairs. I had just about enough energy to shower and crawl into bed, but out of sheer habit, I switched on the TV and started watching a crime drama hoping that it would conk me out until the next morning.

That's when I saw an actor who looked like a guy from another show that I watched the night before. I couldn't remember his name, or that of the show, or anyone else in that show. It was about a guy and his wife or his sister (I can't remember), who go on holiday with a bunch of friends or cousins (I can't remember). Anyway, I spent the rest of the night in and out of consciousness, with my brain scrambling to figure out who that actor was.

Since I wasn't even sure if it was actually a real show or a fatigue induced dream, I'm still rummaging for that blessed name!

All help welcome.