I do hope we haven&rsquo;t had our summer. We had such a tantalising taste of it in April when we dug out sandals and sundresses and basked in sunshine, before being plunged back in to wintry days by roaring fires, and then enjoyed another blast of heat early in May.Every now and then I resolutely head out with bare legs or without a jacket, clad only in delusional optimism. And I always regret it. Because England is like that. Even on days that the sun is shining you usually need a layer to take off the chill. That is, until you get the Mad Dogs and Englishmen heatwave when the temperature soars and we start discarding clothing like our life depends on it.Then we&rsquo;re picnicking in the hills, or bicycling through the countryside with the wind in our hair, and the overgrown ferns on the verges brushing against our bare flesh. We&rsquo;re strolling along canal and Thames tow paths, dodging dog walkers and peering nosily in to moored boats We&rsquo;re jostling for outside tables at cafes. We&rsquo;re grabbing charcoal at the petrol station, firing up the barbecue and digging sausages out of the freezer, because that&rsquo;s what English people do when the sun shines.We WILL make the most of it when it comes. We squint and we sneeze and we suffer sunburn. We sweat (or perspire, if youprefer). We even complain about the heat. But that warmth on your back is seductive. And it means the kids GO OUTSIDE.Suddenly the world is full of children who haven&rsquo;t been seen for months. From Cookham to Chesham, Newbury to Newport Pagnell, Bracknell to Buckingham and beyond, there are small people dusting down scooters and bikes, and running &ndash; yes, running! &ndash; in the long grass.And we find ourselves in a Blyton-esque tableau that makes us grown-ups happy, reminiscing about when this was what summer was all about. When we were shoved outside with a gaggle of friends, an apple and ten pence for a phone call. When an orange fishing net and a stream meant hours of fun. When we put blades of grass between our thumbs and tried to whistle, cutting our lips and not panicking because there was blood. When we didn&rsquo;t wear bicycle helmets and had never heard the term &lsquo;stranger danger&rsquo; so just asked a lady the way home if we&rsquo;d lost our bearings.When a paddling pool was for a toddler to splash in. On that note, all winter, my daughter has been reminding me that I forgot to get the paddling pool out last summer. I didn&rsquo;t forget. I couldn&rsquo;t be bothered to inflate it, because the electric pump had broken, and it never seemed worthwhile, given the patchy weather we had. Anyway, I digress. I say paddling&nbsp;pool, but I was foolish enough to succumb to an inflatable &lsquo;swimming pool&rsquo; a few years back, in a moment of sunstroke-induced madness, possibly under the influence of a G&amp;T or two.What was I thinking? I mean, seriously. It requires inflating on an industrial scale, setting aside half a day. The water could, quite frankly, solve many a problem in a sub-Saharan nation. It takes days of blazing sunshine to reach a temperature anywhere near bearable. It kills the grass underneath, leaving a vast glowin-the-dark yellow circle on the lawn. So it was, quite frankly, a bad decision.But she&rsquo;s on my case. She wants the pool out. I fear it will have to make an appearance, whether the mercury soars again or not. I might also be digging out the wetsuits.

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