The weather in Ireland has taken an upturn and the temperature has risen from an average of about 16 right up to 29 in parts of the country. Despite having brown eyes and brown hair, I’m fair-skinned and can develop a light tan, which means I usually turn slightly pink before turning brown over quite a few days, unless I fall asleep in the sun and get badly burnt (in which case you would still see a tide mark of the previous year’s tan) – a lesson I learnt the hard way to avoid. My brothers however, just have to look at the sun and they start to tan. My son is a redhead and avoids direct exposure the sun, but loves being out in it, my eldest daughter is like me and tans slowly, however my youngest is like her uncles and also like her father, she has sallow skin so she just tans and very very quickly.

Despite this, the people I heard complaining about the weather being too hot were people who can actually walk about in it fairly safe from the worry of burning. My second daughtercomplained it was too hot to do anything, as did some of my sallow-skinned friends. My son spend the weekend outside with his girlfriend and pals and had a great time without getting burnt. I spent my free time during the weekend sitting outside my back door (or just inside when it was too hot) catching up on reading I had not had time to previously do, again without getting burnt.

The weather is set to change back to a normal 13 – 16 some time this week and already I am hearing people who had complained about the heat moan about the short blast of summer that we got and it’s not over yet. They don’t seem to see the fantastic opportunity to revel in this short burst of exceptional weather we have had for the past few days. To simply make the very best of what, for us, is a rare opportunity. We know year in, year out, that our weather is extremely changeable, we had heavy snowfall only a few short weeks ago and this also brought out the “Moaning Minnies” in droves to complain. Yet we’ve had advance warning about both extremes and the amount of people who took these opportunities to whinge, moan and complain about it was amazing.

And yet through it all, quietly getting on with it are those who instead of moaning about it, set about organising an impromtu picnic with the children, or decide to go to the beach for the afternoon, or quietly catch up on “me-time” in the sun. Normal routine is set aside to go and enjoy the time in the fabulous sunshine that we already know won’t last very long. There are always those in life that will complain about the changes that are happening around them and beside them are those who welcome them, and see the opportunities that they bring that just weren’t there without those changes. And they make the very best of them, each time they come along. So which camp do you fall into?