Every year it rains buckets throughout July and August, yet every year everyone says “Sure isn’t it terrible, we’ve had no Summer at all, no Summer to speak of at all!”

Well I’m not disappointed, because that was a typical Galway Summer.

Being a pedantic old sod, I was much more irritated by the little sponsorship identitag Avonmore showed before the Summer weather forecast on RTE.

“Add some plant sterols to your daily routine” or somesuch it said, as we were shown a glass of Avonmore Heart Active milk being poured into a bowl of cereal, blueberries, peaches and other fresh fruit.

You’re eating blueberries, peaches and other fresh fruit? So why in the name of all good things in the universe do you need plant sterols in your milk?

Harrumph and middle aged man’s pathetic little grumble over, I’m looking forward to that reversal of weather we in the West of Ireland enjoy in Spring and Autumn, with high pressure bringing dry easterly winds.

I love those sunny Autumn Galway days, where there’s a nip in the air under clear blue skies and the tourists have all gone home thinking it does nothing but rain in Ireland.

Time to sit in your garden – if you’re lucky enough to have one – and look at the withered plants that once dared to impose colour onto those wet Summer days. So don’t be in a rush to put away your garden furniture.

I’d be sitting on mine, were it not for the misguided generosity of Soldier Boy.

‘Twas years ago, a few days before the Snapper and I were to be married, that Soldier Boy headed out to buy our wedding present. He’d asked, so we said any help with garden furniture would be brilliant. We were living in a terraced house with a tiny patio garden, where a small table and chairs would do the job.
 

So off he went to B&Q to buy just that. His intentions were more than honourable but he was still physically attached to his testicles, so as soon as he entered the shop his Alpha Male eyes were drawn to exactly where B&Q wanted them: a massive gas barbeque on display, pure cool, with shelves for your kebabs, scrapy area for your scrapy bits, handles for your tools and skewers, hangy hooks for your cold bottles of beer and pepper spray canisters, and an area underneath big enough to store the smoke-infused wood chippings of four giant redwoods.

Best of all, it had a huge lid with a built-in dial that had a needle that had a Red Zone. I imagine Soldier Boy coming over all wobbly. This was a barbeque with a Red Zone.

Man oh man oh man! How could they not want this? Wasn’t it the best thing anyone could ever buy anyone for a wedding present?

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.