When I was a kid, it felt like a British summer lasted well, all summer.

OK, three of those weeks were usually spent wearing a jumper and the rest consisted of every adult within a five-mile radius insisting that you “make the most of it because it’ll be gone by next week.”

And they were usually right.

Because let’s be honest, if there’s one thing Britain does consistently, it’s rain, it rains in November, it rains in December, January. February and by the time we finally crawl our way into March, I usually can’t remember what the bright yellow thing in the sky looks like.

Fast forward to today and England has just recorded its driest July on record, much of the country is officially in drought, and we’ve already seen temperatures hit 38.1°C this year.

I don’t know about you, but once the temperature gets beyond about 27ish°C, I stop functioning properly. My brain slows down, although thinking about it, that may just be me. My motivation disappears and every movement starts to feel like an unnecessarily tedious task.

Yet there are always people who’ll confidently announce, “This temperature is perfect for me.”

Perfect? Really? Meanwhile, their inner Eskimo is screaming internally while they’re desperately trying to convince themselves that sweating through three T-shirts before lunchtime is somehow enjoyable. Ok, I’ll admit, I have a habit of doing exactly the same thing.

“Oh, I love this weather.” Do I?  I’m never really entirely sure.

And then something remarkable happens.

The entire country loses its mind. Brits go absolutely feral the moment the sun appears. Paddling pools suddenly become more valuable than gold.

Water bombs appear from nowhere.

Garden furniture that’s spent the last eight months hibernating in a shed is dragged back into service.

And then there’s the parasol. Every British household seems to own one. Unfortunately, it’s usually spent the entire winter folded up in that same damp shed and now appears to be covered in some kind of green biological experiment that scientists should probably come and investigate.

Then comes the barbecue….

Oh yeahhhhhh, you confidently get it out, force open the lid and your heart sinks, why? Because nobody cleaned it properly after the last barbecue. Last summer.

So, there you are, scraping away ancient food remnants that have somehow become permanently welded to the grill while wondering why you didn’t bother to spend five minutes cleaning it twelve months ago.

Then it’s time for the annual crowning of Britain’s barbecue kings and queens (Usually by themselves) and yes, before you ask, I am absolutely 100% one of those people. There’s nothing quite like standing over a barbecue with a pair of tongs in your hand and suddenly developing the confidence of a Michelin-starred chef. Never mind that the sausages are burnt on one side and still slightly concerning on the other. Minor details of course. To be fair, the biggest challenge is actually getting the bugger going.

But here’s the thing that completely baffles me, when the sun does finally emerge within 25 minutes, we’re all being told “We’re running out of water! Stop using any for well, anything!”

How is Britain running out of water? Seriously. Like I’ve already said, it feels like it rains continuously between November and March, actually, thinking about it, sometimes April joins in too just for a laugh, May feels like it’s being left out so often gets involved and then there’s June and that usually can’t decide what it wants.

Conserve water. Use less water. Be careful – Why does this happen every single year? We’re an island and t rains all the bloody time.

Yet every summer, we somehow end up acting as though we’ve just discovered we’re living in central Africa.

Now let’s talk about them their pesky water companies, don’t even get me started on their double standards. Water companies lose billions of gallons through leaks every year. Billions, pipes burst and it feels as if all Infrastructure fails. Water consistently disappears into the ground like an unchecked constant, but heaven forbid I fill up a paddling pool for the dog.

Sorry, I mean the kids. Because apparently, that’s where the real problem lies.

Not decades of underinvestment. Not ageing infrastructure. Not leaks that could supply Angel Falls for 6 months.

No.

It’s me and my suspiciously oversized paddling pool. I’d genuinely love to know where all the money goes.

Because we certainly pay enough for our water.

Every year, the bills go up. Every year, we’re promised investment. Every year, we’re told improvements are coming. And every year, nothing seems to change.

It’s like Groundhog Day, the same headlines, the same restrictions, the same warnings and definitely the same conversations.

It’s almost as though the arrival of summer catches the water companies completely by surprise. “Oh dear. The sun’s out again. Nobody could possibly have predicted that.”

Except it happens.

 Every.

Single.

Year.

And here’s my favourite part. The profits continue, the bonuses continue and I’m pretty sure the dividends continue.

But the improvements?

Those seem to move at roughly the same speed as a sloth that fell out of his normal tree and directly into some dubius ‘erb’ bush.

Which for the record, isn’t very fast.

At this point, I’m not entirely convinced the water companies will ever solve the problem. That might interfere with profits, and we simply can’t have that.

So perhaps it’s time to consider nationalising it again.

I know, that’s dangerous territory. But honestly, what could possibly go wrong? It’s not as though we’ve got a completely incompetent government or anything.

The reality is that this isn’t really about sunshine.

Or hosepipe bans.

Or paddling pools.

It’s about the same question we keep finding ourselves asking.

Why do we keep accepting the same problems year after year?

Because somewhere between the endless rain, the drought warnings, the leaking pipes and the annual panic, we’ve all become strangely conditioned to it.

We shrug, we complain, we carry on. Ohh how very British. And next year, without question we’ll do exactly the same thing. We’ll spend six months complaining about the rain. We’ll celebrate the first proper heatwave; we’ll pretend that 38°C feels “absolutely lovely” and we’ll drag the barbecue out only for twenty five minutes later, the water cartels to announce “We’ve got no water” and there we’ll have it, the first hosepipe ban of the summer will appear. I guarantee it.

Or, It could just be me.