The coming summer is ‘odds on for a barbecue summer’, according to long-range forecasts. Summer temperatures across the UK are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer.

Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: “After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30 °C, something we hardly saw at all last year.”

Although the forecast is for a drier and warmer summer than average that does not mean that we will not get some heavy downpours at times. However, a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.

It’s hard to blog when you’ve got your own carnival party congo train kicking and punching your way in sheer delight around the living room. Still as reliable as the British weather is, I shouldn’t get my hopes up until I can feel the skin cancer forming. And Gordon Brown will probably ruin it somehow anyway.