Midsummer Madness

It’s the summer solstice today. It happens at 10:51 GMT (11:51 BST) this morning if you want to be accurate. So from tomorrow, you can dig out your vest and cardigan. We’re on the slide towards winter, and there are only 187 days to Christmas (NB: days, not shopping days)

I mention that because I want to be the first among my blogger friends to squeeze in a mention of Christmas.

The picture, by the way, was taken in Torremolinos. Its the only one I have of sunrise.

So, midsummer in a World Cup year and with alarming frequency, England are on their way home again. Even earlier this time, having failed to get out of the group stage. And it’s not surprising. They showed flashes of what could be against Italy, but played the same old drab and unimaginative football against Uruguay.

Maybe the England player feel the same as I do about midsummer: depressed. The days are too long, the weather typically unreliable, and sleep is no more than a faint, unrealised hope.

It’ll get worse, too. Wimbledon starts on Monday and I hate tennis with the same passion that I love footy.

For all you World Cup whingers, BTW, there are 7½ hours of tennis on one channel this coming fortnight, and over five hours on another. This compares to about 6 hours spread across two channels of the World Cup, and we get Wimbledon EVERY year, not every four. Not only that, but when the groups stages are over, we’ll begin to get rest days in the World Cup. Wimbledon is rammed down your throat hour after hour, day after day for a solid two weeks.

Enough ranting. Let’s go back to ordinary complaining.

Midsummer is the worst for me. Breathing problems mean I have to watch the heat, and the grass is fully aware of this, which is why it makes an annual attempt to take over the world beginning with my back garden. It needs mowing every three days or thereabouts, if only to ensure that Joe, our crackpot Jack Russell, can go out for a leak without the need of a map and compass to find his way back through the jungle.

The birds, too, love it. They perch on the roof over the back, watching for me bringing the mower out, knowing full well that when I’ve done, there will be a feast of grass seeds just there for the picking up.

And what do I get? Hot sweats, a bad back, and if I’m lucky, a cheese and tomato sandwich to keep up me strength.

Why do I get the feeling that the midsummer the odds are stacked against me?