Please Sir - can we have Summer?

Yes, I am about to become grumpy old man at the age of 27 and proceed to complain about the weather and climate of the place I live - Belfast. Before this week this has been the usual pattern for our weather. To start the day it looks promising like in this photo of the Lagan one morning last week, you might even be convinced not to wear a coat:

Then by evening time this (or worse) is the usual view:

You're just lucky if you're not getting a soaking on the way home.

Pretty much the last few months have been terrible, we had one week sometime at the start of history and since then it just rained or looked to be nice then something like a gale got in the way. The Sunday just gone was apparently only the second day this year where it has been a sunny day with a temperature over 21 degrees. That's just not a summer and it's June already, only a few months of hope left before it's the slippery slope into cold and more wet.

According to the met office graphs, sunlight hours by the International Airport peak in May... but May came and went, even the longest day of the year took place under a big grey sheet of cloud... all day! We're now having to hope for statistical anomalies to get a traditional summer. Average temperatures are meant to peak in Belfast next month so we'll see how that goes. If anything it'll be boiling hot but seeing the sun... well, that only happens when it's cold outside.

Norngirl cut the grass earlier in the year and since then there hasn't been 3 consecutive days (whilst we've been in anyway) when there hasn't been rain and we've not been able to cut it back a second time. There has even been a few times when our rented house's garden could have doubled as a boating lake for a Borrowers movie. Worse still, the bulbs I planted in the garden didn't grow. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Luckily though, indoors we've had some success and thanks to my dads advice we have a cherry tomato plant growing nicely. Although it's still early days it's even looking like it might be quite fruitful.

Still, it would be nice if we didn't have to hide indoors all the time during the summer months. No wonder Northern Irish folks have that reputation for burning very easily when on holiday anywhere sunny. I'm well and truly joining that club as I'll probably end up being mistaken for a cave dweller soon. I'm just glad we made it to Mallorca in May, it's like a cup of tea to get me through the gym workout that is no summer.

I don't know about anyone else who lives here but I get jealous hearing about the fact there might need to be a hosepipe ban or the hot weather is causing disruption over in England. That would mean it's been warm and/or dry. This would be a unique scenario for the people of Belfast right now, unique I tells ya! When we do get a rare day of brightness, people go crazy and don't know what to do with themselves. I think some folks might even think the apocalypse is coming, because they seem to lose all sense of reason, get drunk and stagger about the streets before I've even got my bus home on an evening.

The weather is starting to get warm again and we even had decent sun yesterday. The stats have it that this is likely to come with some heavy rain and maybe the odd bolt of lightning but I really hope we might get at least a chance to cut the lawn one of these days. Just a few dry, sunny days in a row. Is it much to ask?
If the global weather system is taking orders, please have this happen on a weekend too and try to keep a nice warm breeze blowing but nothing too blustery mind! Not that I'm in anyway fussy. :-P