Are you there yet?

I only ask because it’s normally around now, in the dog days of August, when it happens to me. After weeks of broiling hot days and sweltering nights, I start to fantasise about pulling on a lovely pair of soft woolly socks or snuggling into a favourite scarf.

I long for chilly autumn nights and cosy evenings, to put away the cloying summer rosé and crack open a bottle of something dark and sturdy – a nice nebbiolo from bosky northern Italy, or something suitably Carpathian.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved that back-to-school moment – not because I particularly enjoyed school: I didn’t, and in any case wasn’t very good at it. It just meant that I didn’t have to be with my family all day, every day, either at home or on holiday, somewhere crowded, hot and overpriced, or being forced to participate in hearty outdoor activities that I loathed and was no good at, such as tennis or sunbathing – or day-drinking.

As an adult, it was no different. After the hell of the hot long vacation, the cool relief of autumn and the return to a comforting routine. No more trying to dream up new ways of entertaining bored children or, later on, getting in the car at 2am to rescue some hapless teenager from a resort nightclub or post-exam results party.

No more torturous car journeys with dogs and kids, no more queasy ferry crossings, no more five-hour delays in migraine-inducing airports designed and run by sadists. No more being frisked by self-important security staff. No more worrying about the hairs on your toes, or whether that annoying bit of fat behind your bra strap is showing.

No more ‘what’s for lunch?’ (why are you asking me?). No more bites, bugs, stings, wasps. No more tourists walking too slowly in front of you. No more rip-off tavernas and 600-euro sunbeds. No more ‘artisanal’ local markets that are just cheap tat off Temu.

I realise, of course, that not everyone shares my view. I have one friend who absolutely adores the carefree, chaotic days of summer, who is never happier than when on a crowded beach with suntan lotion in her hair and a paloma cocktail in hand – or so she claims. I remain sceptical. A lot of people, I find, feel they must pretend to like the summer holidays when, in fact, they hate them just as much as I do.

The only exception to this is my friend Hannah, who came on holiday with us once and spent her days locked in her bedroom reading, emerging very occasionally in sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat to feed and endure a brief constitutional. I was naturally lost in admiration.

Perhaps it’s a ‘Fomo’ thing. After all, social media is awash this time of year with the 21st-century equivalent of the Seventies holiday slide show, although no longer accompanied by Green Chartreuse (those French monks have a lot to answer for) and pickled eggs. But the sentiment is still the same: Not so much ‘sharing’ one’s experience as showing off. Which reminds me, that’s another category to add to the list: Influencers. Worse than the bloody wasps.

Occasionally, one spots a chink in the armour. The other day I texted a friend, same age as me, same child/elderly parents/extended family configuration.

‘How is your holiday going?’ I asked, in the spirit of amicable enquiry. There was a short pause while she was typing, then: ‘I want to throttle the lot of them!’

‘Ooh, goodie,’ I replied. ‘Me too. Who shall we start with?’ No hesitation: The menfolk would have to go first, not least since it would immediately halve the consumption of loo paper and cured meats, and generally make the environment more sanitary. There was also some discussion about other relatives and their nocturnal habits, best not repeated here, and a spirited conversation about what to do with adult children who leave Chinese takeaways out so that the dog eats them and then throws up in the night. On my bed. You know who you are.

I, of course, have no intention whatsoever of throttling anyone. I love all my family dearly, and spending time with all of them. But I don’t think I’m alone in wishing I could just have a small break away from everyone else’s pressing needs, preferably somewhere dark and cool with good soundproofing. In other words, a holiday from the so-called holidays. Roll on autumn...

Kate’s the skinny jean queen

Did the late Queen ever wear jeans? I can’t recall. Queen Camilla was spotted out and about in Ballater in a pair and looked very relaxed. 

Hers were the old-fashioned straight-leg variety – rarely seen these days – whereas her granddaughter Eliza’s were wide-legged and baggy, which my daughter tells me is the cool way to wear them, either with boots or trainers. The main thing is they mustn’t be skinny. The only Royal who can carry those off is the Princess of Wales.

No cause for alarm 

There is a fine line between a politician who is ‘in touch’ and one who just comes across as hopelessly patronising. Andy Burnham is fast showing himself to be the latter. In his desperation to seem ‘relatable’, he is boring us all with his unerring ability to state the bleeding obvious. The ultimate expression of this was that demented emergency alert the Government sent to all our phones the other day, informing us that the weather was a bit hot and that perhaps it was not a good idea to run around with naked flames.

Seriously? What next, an alert telling us that bears enjoy relieving themselves in woods?

Unlike most critics, I must confess I enjoyed Ricky Gervais’s Alley Cats. 

Yes, the language is filthy – but I’m used to that after a lifetime in politics. 

But it was classic Gervais: Bittersweet comedy with moments of acute awkwardness. Anyway, I see that he and his partner, Jane Fallon, are getting married – to avoid inheritance tax. This will surely have neighbours clutching at their pearls in the north London champagne socialist enclave of Hampstead where the couple live. I can only admire his dedication to getting up all the right noses.

Things you see: I was walking to work the other day, and there was a homeless man asleep on the pavement. Some kind soul had left two cartons of milk by his head. As I got closer, the man in front of me – a well-dressed chap in a suit – suddenly reached down and swiped one of them, before walking on. What kind of a person does that?

As we enter another week of the hosepipe ban, I can’t help wondering: How much precious water are the 500-plus data centres in the UK using every day while our beloved gardens wither and die? If ever there were a metaphor for a future ruled by machines, then this is surely it.

I’ve changed my mind about pay-as-you-go electric bikes. I used to love using them – Lime, Forest, Boris (aka Santander) – and was an avid user. But then the other day I was walking along the pavement, and I came across a blind gentleman. He was struggling to find his way around a pair of Lime bikes that had been chucked on their sides in his path.

I helped him steer round them and we got chatting. He said they’ve made his life an absolute misery, often forcing him off the pavement and on to the side of the road. Selfishly, this thought had never occurred to me. 

But when you look around and see how many pavements are being blocked by these things, you realise the potential danger they pose to anyone with any kind of impairment. What started out as a great idea has, as with so much these days, become a total menace.