The first thing I see the minute I open my eyes is the sky. Alright, I actually see the washroom of the house across our garden and if I twitch my head at a bionic-man angle, I see the sky. And I see the resident pigeon which is always sitting on the water tank of this washroom, staring fixedly at me.

I love it that when I kiss my daughter she tastes of salt; I love sitting in our micro-garden, eating ice cream- Kristina Chetcuti

It’s the morning ritual. I stretch and get out of bed and the pigeon flinches and turns away and starts pacing on top of the tank,pretending it hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in our household. My daughter thinks it’s really an alien spying on us.

But I digress. What I wanted to say was, have you noticed how the sky has been turning slightly grey and cloudy? And have you noticed that at times – ever so slightly – it rained? It’s the beginning of the end of summer: the sign that sticky September is round the corner and that our hair from now till November will be forever shapelessly limp, with however, enough frizz to give us all that bad-hair-day-crash-helmet look.

I love summer, and it is my firm belief that when I win the lottery, come November I would jump on a plane to Australia and start summer all over again and then I’d come back to Malta in May.

I can never empathise with people who are not enamoured of the summer months. I love ditching my flip-flops and walking barefoot; I love the warmth of the sun; I love the sound of children laughing and playing on the beach; I love the snippets of conversations you can eavesdrop when you’re lying down on the sand, doing nothing but people-watching; I love it that when I kiss my daughter she tastes of salt; I love sitting in our micro-garden, eating ice cream; I love drinking Shandy and eating chips before we climb up those never-ending Riviera beach steps; I love meeting up for long lunches with friends talking about everything and nothing; and most of all I love that there is no school rush, no early bed times and no regimental routine that we have to stick to.

There are, of course, things that irk me about summer, apart from the people who constantly complain about how hot it is. There’s the Maltese people living abroad who come to visit and are always going on about “għax aħna in London, we have this and that”, which makes me want to blow raspberries in their faces.

Then there’s Italian tourists in white skimpy Speedos who never stop grumbling about how they cannot get a decent coffee away from their beloved shores “Ma questo non è un espresso, a casa non si fa cosi, ragazz”. Then there’s pushy parents who think they know best for your child and who tut-tut because your child is still wearing water wings at age five, yada-yada-yada.

And then there’s the hair maintenance. Or perhaps I should specify: the unwanted hair maintenance. I started waxing age 13 when a beautician assured my mother that if I shaved like the rest in the world, my hair would grow faster and faster and thicker and thicker and eventually I would look like a bear. What can I say? Thank God that after many years of waxing, they invented laser. Actually the inventor of laser should be awarded Ġieħ ir-Repubblika.

Although to be honest, maybe times are a-changing. Because the other day, a friend sent me the oddest link: Armpits4August. Throughout the month of August in the UK, 250 women let their armpit hair grow for a month to raise money for charity.

It’s all very noble and all that but I don’t know I would do that. It too ‘alphawomanish’.

While we’re on it, have you noticed lately how men are becoming hairless too? Why is it that these days you can sit down and discuss waxing and laser and electrolysis with your male friends too?

The other day, I passed by a group of builders, you know, the ones who are supposed to have the builders’ bum and so forth. Instead, they all had perfectly trimmed eyebrows and not a single hair in their legs. What is happening here?

Sometimes it feels like the world is going topsy-turvy. But as long as it’s warm and sunny and summer, I can cope with that.

As I type this, from the corner of my eye, I can feel the pigeon staring at me. I’m hoping it doesn’t have laser eyesight, for if it can read this, God know what it will report to the mother space ship.