It is, as prominent climate change activist Steve Wonder predicted all those years ago, hotter than July. I’m putting ice cubes in the dog’s water bowl, I’m tempted to put tomorrow’s kex and shirt in the fridge, and I’m caught between the wisdom of keeping the windows shut in the day and the craving for just a breath of blesséd breeze.
My thoughts turn frequently to ice cream.
Despite the heat, I have yet to hear an ice cream van this summer. What can this mean. The harsh clang of its swirling notes straining through the crappest of loudhailers once had the kids playing on the green running home, ball deserted mid-flight, to beseech parents for ice cream money in tones ordinarily reserved for begging to watch the Bond film that went on past bedtime.
Things might go three ways: you’d get some money with which to select your chosen ice cream/lolly, there would be an outright no, or a parent might decide it was their job to buy it, to be the hero.
If the old man bought it, chances are it might be a family block - a long, squat, breeze block of vanilla - from which thick, slippery slices of cold deliciousness might be cut. In its favour, we knew the family block would go for at least two days even with the four of us, so there was that.
On a good day, we might have chocolate sauce and hundreds and thousands to go with; if we were unlucky, he’d turn it into a sandwich between two wafers. Nothing good ever came of a wafer.
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