"I DON'T like summer myself. Personally," said the girl in the pale pink shorts and the dark pink halter top. She was eating a huge ice cream cone and waiting in the crowds to see the USS JFK come into view in Dun Laoghaire.
She looked like an advertisement for summer, with her shiny hair, her 97 small healthy teeth, her light sun tan and her air of well being.
"I know," said her friend, who was no use as a friend. She had said "I know" to people for all off her 18 years and you could tell she would do so forever. "I know what you mean."
The girl who didn't like summer, personally, was at least a person of views, she was prepared to elaborate on her stance.
"You see the thing about summer is that you expect so much from it," she said earnestly. "Every time you open the papers or turn on the television there's someone saying `Here comes summer' and you get all excited and then nothing much happens at all."
"Oh I know," said the other one.
Socrates had a friend like that, didn't he, when he was writing the Dialogues, some dumbo who said "Assuredly", every two pages or so.
Deeply depressing, I would have thought, and wouldn't have crossed the road to meet the guy again. But look at this way, they remained mates, at least until the end of the book, so people might just appreciate that kind of attitude in other people. Anyway, the girl who didn't like summer, personally, seemed perfectly pleased with the response.
"Like they're always saying that the deep dark days of winter are behind - I love winter."
"Oh winter's great," said the other.
"And you could stay in bed on a winter morning without being demented by the birds, they've all gone down to the Mediterranean or died or something in winter, you'd get a bit of peace."
"The birds are brutal," said her friend.
"You know where you are in winter, you're cold and wet and you know that's what it's going to be, you haven't a clue where you are in summer.
"Not a clue."
"It could be pouring rain or roasting the skin off of you, and what's there to do anyway?"
"Tell me about it," said the other.
They were both gorgeous looking, and getting many admiring looks from what I would have thought were fine young fellows as they stood scantily clothed, staring with dulled eye out at the JFK.
The girl in the two shades of pink finished her ice cream and licked her fingers.
"You know another thing about summer, you end up eating 300 calories of this stuff without even realising you're even doing it".
The other one nodded until her head nearly fell off.
"You're right," she said. "You're too right."
I didn't wish the pink girl a more sunny attitude, or a sense of priorities. I was sorry that she didn't have anyone to disagree with her and to sing some song in praise of summertime. I wished her a better friend.
THE woman polishing her brasses was dying for a chat. "It's a nightmare trying to keep the house right in summer," she said. I told her she was doing a great job of it. But no, apparently the bright light of summer was the enemy. You could shine and shine and some smear always showed up. But the very worst thong was the way the bit of brass polish comes off on the door, well, that kind of thing goes unnoticed in winter, but at this time of the year it's a nightmare.
I thought to myself that a nightmare was, putting it a bit strongly, and though a lot of people have very exacting standards about housekeeping, there's a question of going too far.
"You see there should be some method which means that you only clean the brass and not the door," she said. What 1 should have said of course, was "I know, this is what you're up against." Why? do I never realise that this is the right thing to say almost all the time?
But I said that there was a woman who lived near us in London who had little cardboard shields cut out and she used to lay them over the knocker and the letter box and just clean within them so that the brass polish didn't get on the door.
Well, if I had found the Holy Grail or the "Missing Link" she couldn't have been more interested. And was it heavy cardboard and did you stick it onto the door, or just hold it, and imagine my doing that. She'd never have thought it about me, just goes to show how wrong you can be about people. She was going to go in and make one immediately, and would a cornflake packet be strong enough, or should it be something sturdy and what did I use myself?
I was purple in the face trying to tell her that I had never done it, but she didn't believe me. If you had a wonderful hint like that, then of course you'd use it. I had transformed her summer for her, she said. But don't you like summer anyway, I pleaded.
I wished she did, but in fact she didn't. The sofa covers faded, the net curtains looked grimey after three days, you realised how much of the place needed painting. One good thing about winter, she said mysteriously, was that everyone was in the same boat.
THERE'S this couple who have been given the loan of a mobile home for a week. They were delighted because they thought they could have one last real family holiday before the kids grew up and wanted to go off on their own. There's only one problem. The children think they are grown up and have planned to go off on their own already. They're 15 and 16 for heaven's sake. What would they be doing going on a holiday with their parents?
A holiday is what it says it is, it's time off to enjoy yourself, to be free to do what you want. The mobile home would be like home, but even more uncomfortable. You'd have to be in for meals and clear up after them and you wouldn't be allowed go anywhere.
No they don't quite say it like this, but that's the drift.
And they don't buy the idea of it being one last holiday either. You can be absolutely certain that come next year there'll be one more "last holiday", and so on until they are old and grey.
The kind thing to do is to cut it now and let the parents realise that it's not on packing Scrabble and a family size Nivea Creme any more.
I know I'm a softy, but I wish there could have been a compromise. That the children could have come to the mobile home for just a weekend. That way things wouldn't have looked so bleak for good warm people whose only crime was to want to enjoy the summer.