Wow, I thought, tentatively toeing what was left of the lawn, I’d forgotten what wet grass felt like.

I’d even half-forgotten what green grass looked like because it’s been so brown - and sometimes burned nearly white – for so long.

I’d definitely forgotten what feeling cold is like, and getting caught in a shower of heavy rain definitely came as a bit of a shock.

In fact, I’d become so complacent about this whole French Riviera-in-Ireland summer we’d been having that I’d installed two sets of pretty mosaic-patterned solar lights from Aldi in the incredibly verdant, flourishing, luxuriant, not to say rampant, bed of flowers near the patio.

And, even more incredibly in the context of your average Irish summer evening, instead of pulling on fleeces and leggings and running inside to light the fire long before sunset, we’d been balming out in warm darkness, sipping cold white wine or drinking tea, and gazing at the gently glowing lights without ever feeling the chill of that old grave-digger’s shovel.

I’d been stepping down off the pier and straight into tepid seas without thinking about the heart-stopping cold. In fact, once the jellyfish sloped off to wherever they came from, it was paradise.

Two days before the end of the long, long heatwave – yes I........

© Evening Echo