Despite the current cooler weather, I am not enjoying summer. Summer is a mirage. It’s fake, like a lot of tans that come with it and is not the beachball, bronzed, beer and BBQ, semi-clad lifestyle image we pretend it is. With temperatures in the mid 40s, it’s a meltdown.

It actually began, astronomically, on the longest day of the year: 22nd December, although meteorologists use average temperatures to fix their commencement date at 1st December. Not even the seasons are absolutely certain it seems.

Australia has always been one of the big users of this fixed-date system perhaps because we were originally a penal colony with our former Governors fixing the date to delineate a changeover for military and naval summer uniforms.

The glamour of summer turns to glare after the first few weeks as sunburn, incessant flies, lack of water, dried-up plants, melting asphalt, boiling car radiators, daylight saving and high-noon heat all conspire to make us perspire, and flee to the nearest cool spot.

And, in our southern states, government have invoked sudden power blockouts to save stress on the electricity grid. This, however, adds to individuals’ office stress as air-conditioning systems shut down and workers dehydrate in closed-window humidicribs.

We humans have a limited operational temperature range. Like fine wine, we prefer to be kept at an ambient 21 degrees. Alterations of only a few degrees either side cause us to become irritable quite quickly. Our blood and internal organs heat up and our internal cooling systems, especially for the brain, become stressed just as we then do.

Summer increases skin cancer. It ratchets up air-conditioning bills and means playing footpath ballet to avoid children with sticky ice-creams. I loathe getting into a vehicle that is a glass oven hot enough to roast a chicken and melting onto the seat. I resent seeing all the little white fluffy cloud symbols on the weather map replaced with sinister fire flames and HIGH FIRE DANGER alerts. I choke on the acrid, cinder-laden smoke as the sky turns burnt orange from nearby mountain bushfires and cringe with the first clichéd newspaper banner shrieking: “State tinderbox alert”.

Summer is a time for wishing it was winter, for coveting cool breezes, low humidity and rain. At least in winter, when you’re cold, you can just keep piling on the warm clothes and blankets. In summer, you keep taking off everything until you’re naked and there’s nothing left to take off but you’re still narcoleptic and haggard from the heat.

The next Ice Age cometh, eventually, but not fast enough for me.