Lake Balaton

Summer seems to have come with a vengeance. Only days ago we had to have fires going and now every door and window is wide open and the house is really warm. It seems such a waste of time to spend it indoors, but there are still things to do and too long in the sun, we are told, is bad for you. It never seemed to bother us as kids, though I suppose we wore more clothes in those days and rarely lay about soaking up the rays. Sun screen was for us a thing of the future and sunburn a lesson that you didn't easily forget.
I think the last time that I got sunburned was in 1969 after a bunch of us canoed our way across Langstone harbour and spent a few hours sunning ourselves in the sand dunes. The pain that night and for the following days was intense and debilitating, and although the ministrations of some rather lovely fellow students were quite interesting, there was no compensation for the stupidity of my actions that day. Since then I stay in the shade where possible, and for the sake of other people I keep my body covered.
No doubt the sun worshippers will be out on the beaches today and white flesh will sizzle in the heat, skin will redden and peal and global warming will get the blame. The sun also brings out the summer outfits, some of which are actually attractive to look at, but I am sure that some should be made illegal, if not on the grounds of decency, then on the grounds of bad taste.
Today will see scores of disposable barbecues pouring out smoke over every common, beach or park as people fall for the supermarket practice of dressing up unsaleable cuts of meat and past their sell by date vegetables as barbecue fare. These will be ceremonially burned, polluting the air and creating a litter of aluminium foil, unburned charcoal and scraps of inedible food.
Drinkers will join the smokers outside the pubs and shopkeepers will bemoan the lack of sales whilst wishing that they too could be at the beach or the park.
The same will be happening all over Europe as the weather seems set fair for a few days and i am sure that even the shores of lake Balaton will be festooned with bikini clad beauties as well as beached whales in lycra.