HOW many times have you heard the phrase ‘it’s going to be a lovely weekend’ during a summer swiftly warming up to be hotter than a heatwave in hell.
Usually delivered by some chirpy but well-meaning soul, the tone can seem inane, smug, almost patronising as if there’s somehow a consensus that being boiled alive like a lobster is a good thing – and you should be really happy about it.
One of the most annoying things about summer, apart from the stifling heat of course, is the expectation that you have to enjoy it. If you don’t, you must be a bit weird. Some people hate it. I’m one of them. And I’m not alone.
People will look at like your mad if you say you loathe the hot half of the year. They look at you as if you’ve said something profoundly peculiar, even blasphemous, or you’ve dropped down to earth from another planet, a frozen one obviously.
WINTER: James Connell prefers the shade to the summer sun. (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)
The truth is, I hate a lot of the sensations about summer other people seem to love – the blinding glare of the sun, the smothering, oven-like oppressiveness of the heat, the sound of flipflops, the drone of lawnmowers (noises seems to carry differently in summer – car horns and even rumbling exhausts seem more intrusive), the texture of cut grass and the smell of sun cream.
Other gripes are the gaudiness of the flowers, the dawn chirruping of birds, the overpowering scent of vegetation bursting into life and the death-like odour of summer drains.
I’ve always much preferred autumn and winter where these sounds and smells are softened. The wind and rain give me an excuse to scuttle indoors to read a book or watch a film without feeling guilty about it. Summer also brings more people outside and that means crowds often gather in one place. That brings its own host of issues.
As temperatures continue to rise with a record May temperature of 35.1C recorded recently at Kew Gardens in London, summer (or should I say spring?) has never been more spectacularly offensive.
HEAT: Worcester Cathedral from Fort Royal (Image: Anil Patel)
Angharad Griffiths-Payne, a 54-year-old fitness instructor and amateur photographer, is more affected by these rises than myself which she attributes to Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder (Summer SAD), a form of depression triggered by warmer weather and longer days which can lead to insomnia, anxiety, restlessness, and decreased appetite.
There are even Facebook groups devoted to the subject, offering support and advice. One of them, called ‘I hate summer’ (which features, appropriately, an image of winter trees) has 53,000 members. Another group is called Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder (R-SAD).
“It seems absolutely senseless to me to call it a “lovely” weekend when there have been weather warnings for health,” she said, pointing out that some people get physically and mentally very ill due to the heat.
Mrs Payne said: “It started last Friday, May 22 2026, but I could feel the “humidity rising” in my body, my own term that I have adopted to describe the anxiety inducing sensation in my core, the one where I feel frightened, overwhelmed and desperate at the fact that I cannot control the deeply unpleasant, to the point of pain, feeling of boiling over.
SUMMER: Angharad Griffiths-Payne is affected by Reverse (Summer) SAD (Image: Supplied)
“People of more recent acquaintance in my life would attribute it to my age, but alas, this has troubled me since childhood.”
Angharad was only four years old during what she called the ‘gruesome and ridiculously romanticised summer of 1976’.
Angharad, originally from West Wales and now living in Lincolnshire, realises now her reaction may indicate she is neurodivergent and is ‘on the long and distressing wait for both autism and ADHD assessment’.
She also has the comorbid condition misophonia, which, literally translated means ‘hatred of sound’ which can also be more triggered in summer.
Angharad said: “More common misophonia triggers are eating noises from other people, but there are many others. In my case it is the sound of any lawnmower, whether electric or petrol, although petrol mowers enrage me the most.
“I class Britain as a hot country now – and it’s no wonder some of us are depressed between April and October. It is like living with chronic pain.”
Research into Reverse (Summer) SAD, initially started by Doctor Norman Rosenthal, indicates a number of factors can cause this syndrome.
Angharad added: “The issues I already mentioned can also be further compounded by the association of events at this time of year – final academic examinations anyone? For me this is certainly true, dating back as a seventeen year when my first boyfriend and I split, just before the still comparatively unprecedented hot summer of 1989, and more recently having lost my father in 2017 in summer and this April losing my mother. I feel that this latest heatwave is a further punch to the stomach during an already horrible time.
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“I will always prefer what I see as the calm and order of Autumn and Winter – that new start feeling at the beginning of the academic year, the restful quiet by 6pm, the toned down mellow light as opposed to the cheap polyester glare of the intense attacking high sun of July. The better food – I hate salads, and prefer comfort drinking coffee and “proper” meals and that autumn staple of apple and blackberry crumble.”
The heat can also have other, serious consequences for health – and even keeping cool is not without risks.
The body of a 14-year-old boy has been recovered from the River Thames making him the 11th person to die in water-related incidents during the recent heatwave.
Police, fire and ambulance services were called to the River Thames near Donnington Bridge, Oxford, at around 5.30pm on Wednesday.