The hot weather makes us all dream of something long and cool at the end of the day, but what can you do if you don't, for whatever reason, want to have a belt of alcohol in your tall, cool something?
If you want to make something approximating a Bloody Mary, but which doesn't contain any vodka, try mixing very cold tomato juice, straight from the fridge, with lots of ice cubes, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a shake of tabasco sauce and then a good splash of very cold tonic water.
The tonic loosens the tomato juice, while the other key elements of the Bloody Mary can - almost - convince you there is something potent in the brew.
One of the great classic cooldown drinks is also one of the simplest: Roses Lime Juice Cordial, served in a tall glass with loads of ice cubes and very cold water.
You could use a bottle of sparkling water for some nice fizz which makes it festive, or even use soda or tonic water. Kids like a belt of this as well.
Marks & Spencer has just introduced a new range of non-alcoholic fruit and spring water drinks, of which the choicest is the excellent Elderflower and Lemon Symphony.
Just a tiny bit fizzy, this is light, refreshing and good fun, and its wine-bottle style makes it seem like something boozy.
The M & S Elderflower and Lemon Symphony costs 69p a bottle, and a few bottles of it in the fridge is a pretty good idea for the long, hot summer.
Low fat, high fun
`Nutrition without sensual enjoyment is grim indeed; healthy eating must be a celebration, not a punishment," writes Sue Kreitzman in the introduction to The Low Fat Cookbook. If that sounds like the sort of thing those who have a struggle with their weight want to hear, I suspect this book, with its imaginative techniques for removing fat from cooking, will prove particularly useful.
Certainly the recipes and the photography are a million miles away from any self-denying food ordinance, being lush, colourful and vivid, and the techniques which Kreitzman specifies for cooking without fat - making flavour-infusions to heighten flavour, using a water and oil spray for cooking - can be mastered by anyone, for they are very simple and logical.
Sue Kreitzman, The Low fat Cookbook (Dorling Kindersley, price £16.99 in the UK)