Summer madness!

When summer extends well into autumn we call it an Indian Summer. In Spain and Italy, and perhaps other European countries as well, they call it the Summer of Saint Martin. Does anybody have a name for the summer that arrives in April? True, it is a bit different in that it stays around for a few days and then, rather than spring returning, winter comes back with a vengeance. That is what has been happening around here. I would not be at all surprised the hear frost and snow forecast before long! 

Okay, I exaggerate somewhat but I was back in long running trousers and a long-sleeved top this morning instead of the light weight knee-length shorts and sleeveless top that has been my running-gear for the last few days. So it goes!

Rain is forecast for later in the day. Which may be no bad thing. It’s not the gardens I am bothered about, although it is true they probably need a bit of irrigation. No, I am hoping it might put a stop to the fires which have continued to spring up on the moorland around here. Last night I walked home from nearby Greenfield at 7.30 and saw smoke billowing from the hillside. Not long after that I saw a fire engine on it’s way up the back road to the golf club. Someone told me that Knott Hill, just outside Delph, has been on fire as well.

Now, nobody is going to convince me that fires that start at 7.00 in the evening, or even 9.00 as an acquaintance told me she saw from her window, were started by careless use of portable barbecues. Yesterday was mostly fine but hardly barbecue weather. And who barbecues in the dark? Besides, some of these locations are not exactly picnic spots. Someone is going round setting fires!

Crazy people!

And it’s all a bit close to home now.

The spectators have been out in force as well. On one occasion earlier this week fire engines could not immediately get to the fire because there were so many parked cars - cars parked by people who wanted the excitement of watching the fire!

More crazy people!

Now for some more craziness but of a harmless variety.

Yesterday I read that Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, an old gent who took part in the D-Day landings and fought hard against the Germans in the Second World War, had died. He was 98, a grand old age. This, of course, has nothing to do with craziness. The craziness comes in his full name: Jean Benoît Guillaume Robert Antoine Louis Marie Adolphe Marc d’Aviano.

Wow! Imagine being a small child and having to learn how to write all that. Or indeed, merely having to remember your full name! And then I think of him being naughty as a child, the kind of situation where your parents, or in his case probably a nanny, call you by your full name so that you know they are being really serious!!

And here is more: white jeans!

I have nothing against white jeans ... apart from their being decidedly impractical. Jess Cartner-Morely goes on at some length about them here. As usual, it’s not so much the fashion as the price quoted that astounds me. She talks about a brand of jeans I have never heard of, Acne Mece straight-fit jeans, selling for £240 a pair. No doubt I have never heard of them because it would not occur to me to seek such a pricey item of clothing.

 And to think that I used to think Levis were expensive, back in the day when you just had to have a pair of Levis! Jess C-M tells me you can buy cropped Levi 501s, which she describes as “ a perfect summer shape” for £85.

A bargain!