Did someone say that the last heat-wave in Ireland was in 2006? In that case, the weather was another thing that went up with the bubble. And there must now be thousands of Irish seven-year olds who have never seen five days of sunshine in a row.
It all feels a bit like Christmas week. When productivity plummets, routine – meals, gym, Coronation Street – flies out the window; a July Tuesday in the pubs is like the Tuesday before Christmas; and mature professionals revert to 10 year olds in their emails: "so, so sad being in an office on a day like this"; "wish we'd done teaching so we could be at the beach now", "be so cool to have an outdoor job wouldn't it?"
Bosses – the good ones – try to do consolatory things like call in an ice-cream van and 3pm finishes on a Friday. The stiffest of firms loosen up with “casual week” dress-codes – not Google’s boardie-shorts type casual, but it’s an effort.
On a run like this, our Mediterranean aspirations turn real. Nobody has to stand in the rain flipping chicken thighs while guests huddle at the kitchen window wondering about the chances of salmonella. You don’t put on a little dress and wedges in the morning, then have to pack an umbrella, boots and a mac in your handbag just in case . . .It takes some getting used to. At least with Christmas, we know what to expect. This just sends us into a frenzy. A key factor is the lack of preparation time, in terms of managing one’s work-life balance; and, most importantly, what (not) to wear.
Planning goes into a sun-holiday. The time off work; planning for the temperature at destination and the appropriate clothes to pack; time to start buffing bodies that haven't been exposed to anything except hot showers for a year. But then we're thrown a curve-ball. A surprise summer. The "hot and sunny" temperatures are set to stay – even Morning Ireland newsreaders barely stifle a "Yippee" – and a nation decides there isn't a minute to be wasted. Emergency annual leave days are taken and sick-notes called in.
It doesn’t get dark till 11pm so there’s a whole extra day to be had after work. Sun-starved nine-to-fivers leg it out of the office and do things they’ve never done before like run up and down mountains in Wicklow; or play tag; or stroll on the beach – “seriously, it’s actually like Bondi down here”. But the worst part is negotiating the style conundrum in a run of hot weather is hard when you’re not reared to it. Like the awkward moment when the Limerick solicitor bucked the rules by going into court with – gasp! – no jacket on because it was just too hot, your honour.
As for the rest of us, our summer “collection” amounts to a build-up of Penney’s threads from long-gone, two-week holidays. What to wear to work? How to get that cool, casual summer look down? And who are those irritating women who can bare all at the drop of a hat?
So we hightail it to Penney’s again – like Christmas jumpers, there’s no point spending money on stuff we’ll only wear for a week. But the locusts have descended. The shops are all out of deck-chairs and Tangle Twisters and ice, so Penney’s naturally is bare of flip-flops and bikinis and the shorts we saw last April and considered buying for a nice summer stock-pile, but decided against, since that would be a waste of money. So now the girls cling to their black opaques and the poor lads to their hardy suits and weatherproof shoes, willing the weather back to normal. If all we have are cheap threads-designed to self-destruct after two weeks on the beach- what about office wear? Unstructured boliday wear, with the kind of thigh and cleavage exposure that looks grand in Marbella, doesn’t translate to the workplace. Especially not those on-trend wild patterns and animal prints.
Those soignee women coolly floating around in light airy appropriate-length whites and taupesm, in pristine white tees and sharp cigarette pants, and linen shift dresses, have clearly bitten the bullet and invested in quality summer clothes at some point. And had pedicures.
They’ve dealt with the demons of trying to amend our normal ‘summer’ wardrobe to Irish -Mediterranean temperatures - like the 7 inch coral heels, beachy flip flops, maxi dresses God help us, the go-to shiny black shift dresses that don’t quite fit, the grey winter-weight jackets and skirts that will never adapt to fake-tanned legs and a pastel lacy top.
Are we just very bad at all this? Maybe. But why would we be good at it?
Anyway, have you ever seen a nation as happy as we were in the last few weeks? And unlike Christmas, this was a frenzy driven by the sun – for the price of a disposable BBQ grill and a few ice-pops. I hope the seven-year olds appreciate this like we do.
Róisín Ingle returns next week