A sniff, just a sniff of the sun in the sky.
And ours is not to reason why.
Yes it’s ten mile tailback, caravan carve up
Beer bellied lobster, white leg and sandal
Fish and chip sunburn, vampire seagull
Prison camp rock pool, winkle internment
Pensioners crinkle and babies explode
As buses make sticky black grooves in the road
As media banners do testament pay
That it’s 'Hotter by far than Barbados today'
'Hotter than Tunis' 'Hotter than Rome'
Windbreak partition and cool box and dome
Tent to annex a square foot of sand
As we strip to our ‘cozzis’ and seek to be branded
And burnt like a beast on the spit
Before struggling off with our mountains of kit
To the car, where we sit and we move and we sit
And then move and then sit and then sit for a bit
Crawling home after dark much more dead than alive
With a look of surprise that we really survived
Then we gingerly say in the cruel after glow
‘I think I’ve definitely caught the sun, you know?’