Summertime and the Going is Easy....

Who wrote that rubbish, I've never heard of anything so stupid. Summertime is not easy at all. We have just endured a hot, sunny weekend here in London. Thank goodness it's Monday, that's all I can say. As you may have noticed, I've been taking it rather easy recently - what do you mean you hadn't noticed! I don't know why I bother. Anyway, I felt compelled to put pen to paper (or should that be paw to keyboard?) today.

A little bit of sunshine, and the locals go stark raving mad. I don't know what gets into them - they all seem to take to their gardens and get up to the most ludicrous things. All my little haunts where I creep off to for a quiet nap, all taken over by people in funny clothes laying about on the grass, and getting up to all sorts of ridiculous things. The only place to get a decent kip is indoors, all the houses are empty. I'm just pleased most of them have cleared off back to work this morning and left me in peace. What a weekend I've had.I don't know where to start - barbecues seems as good a place as any. Now I thought a barbecue was a long line of people waiting to have their hair cut. It's not compulsory to laugh at this point, but please do try!! Anyway, what a strange ritual this is. The men, who often don't even know where the kitchen is, all of a sudden think they can cook. The sweet scent of the summer flowers is completely overwhelmed by the fragrant aroma of burnt sausage, and the bright sunshine all but obliterated by wafts of smoke that resemble a November fog rolling in off the North Sea.

Why do they do it? I mean who wants to eat meat that is burnt to a cinder on the outside and raw in the middle - must be an acquired taste. So as not to be left out, we had a barbecue in our back garden. The one I don't trust put a skewer of prawns on. "Bert will like one of these" he said. Well, I would have done before he got his hands on them. He threw one in my direction. Good job I ducked - if it'd hit me, it would have knocked me out! He seemed genuinely put out when I turned my nose up at it. Now I've got a pretty good set of choppers, but even I couldn't bite through it. And another thing it smelt like it had been gently tossed in a petrol and crushed coal marinade before cooking - not to my taste at all, but they ate them.I wandered off in search of peace, but in every garden I came to, similar things were going on. People of all shapes and sizes eating burnt food, their eyes running from the smoke, their faces slowly going bright red, and all dressed in funny clothes. Most of them were wearing shorts. Now some people..... how can I put this delicately...... let us just say people of a certain size and leave it at that, shouldn't be allowed to wear shorts. What a sight! I think a licence should be necessary to wear shorts. In another garden, I heard a woman tell her daughter in a very loud voice that all the neighbours could hear, to go and play in the swimming pool. Swimming pool I thought, they've put that in quick, they didn't have one yesterday. When I looked, it was nothing more than a plastic blow up thing with a couple of inches of water in it. If I had a bit of a thirst on, I could drink it in one go. I even had a look out into the front street, and all I could see was an Englishmen taking his mad dog for a walk in the mid-day sun. A little joke for my more cultured readers - all three of you.

Well, that's my lot for today. I hate the hot weather, roll on winter that's what I say. I heard the pretty one say "that sun is very hot today." The one I don't trust replied "well don't touch it then" before collapsing into fits of laughter. She gave him an icy stare - there could be a cold front moving in any time now! What a life! AlbertThe(scorched)Cat.