Sweat, wasps, everyone squinting, there being no excuse to drink hot chocolate, wear long woollen coats, ridiculously thick socks or scarves, no clouds, fingernails that grow at a ridiculous rate, greasy suncream, fractious and equally greasy smaller siblings, and perhaps worst, not being able to walk anywhere here (and it is mostly here, for some reason) without coming home to find that many greenflies and other small things I cannot identify are somehow trapped in my hair, and are making those heart-rending, spasmodic little leg movements that they make when not entirely happy. What to do without hurting them? It's terrible - and I just end up waiting for them all to fall out of their own accord, much to the disgust of anyone else present. (Because The Tea Table Is No Place For Greenflies! . . . I don't know why, it's not as if they move very fast or outwit fathers out of their fair share of potato). Oh, dear . . . I sound dreadfully bitter - what I might mean is that I am glad that you are having a pleasant time of it. I think I was conditioned to be terrified of summer from a very early age because at my school summer meant TENNIS and tennis meant injury, humilation and quite often both - simultaneously.

*is transported back into a fitful haze, only to hear a Hitleresque scream of Johnson!!! What in blazes was that supposed to be?! as the tennis racket and the ball both fly off in odd directions*

Though, yes, after dinner walks are really quite nice in the summer, purely for the fact that someone might even consider coming with you, which they would never do in winter. Oh, and mangoes are in season, and I like those.

....watermelon... ~drools and makes Homer sounds~

sounds very nice to me, it's heading into Winter in Oz...