Julie Jay: My stomach sinks at the prospect of fun in the sun

Irish Examiner

22-07-2025

When I see temperatures are about to soar, my entrails take a correlative nosedive, as my stomach sinks at the thought of having fun in the sun.
I can't be the only perennial pessimist who finds parenting in the sun tricky, surely?
Rainy parenting, I can do: I am a big fan of getting cosy and watching telly, punctuating telly time with arts, crafts, and some pancake making to mark the daylight hours.
Other than that, much like a Las Vegas casino, it is impossible to ever tell the time of day in our home for much of the year, as I lean into hibernation mode and can rest assured only the Steiner school extremists are traipsing out into the wild.
Then there is the clothes side of things: I have one pair of shorts which I purchased immediately after Bush and Blair decided to invade Iraq.
I pair this singular pair of shorts with various t-shirts, but other than that, my capsule wardrobe is about the size of a Kinder egg, such is the need for summer fashions.
So rare is the sun in this country that I have spent a huge amount of this summer season explaining to my four-year-old that that orb in the sky is not, in fact, the moon, but its rarely seen but equally important equinox cousin.
The problem with sunny weather is that I am not, by nature, an outdoorsy person, so I really don't know what to do with myself when temperatures are anywhere above freezing.
Having always self-flagellated as a single lady about wasting my days indoors on sunny afternoons, my guilt is now only compounded by the feeling I have to be doing stuff with my kids outside now, excessive pollen count and all.
When it's sunny, you just can't win as a parent. If you take the kids to the beach, you are chastised by passersby who say really helpful things like 'I wouldn't let my dog out in this heat' and remind you that on the continent, you can't buy crisps anywhere between 1pm and 5pm.
It seems cruel to resort to a paddling pool in the garden when we are beside so many beautiful beaches, but the only thing that sends a shiver down my spine more than eating out with my children is bringing my children to a beach.
Usually, I will get about an hour-and-a-half with the kids at the seaside before the Taytos are gone and everyone wants to go home.
THESE TIDES, LEAVING ME BEHIND
Because I still don't know how tides work, I never know on any day what the sea is going to be like when we arrive.
On the day my auntie joined us on one of our beach excursions and insisted we try a new beach, we arrived to find the tide completely in and no beach in sight.
Ever since, my four-year-old has viewed his aunt with great suspicion, expressing caution when I suggest inviting her to future beach outings, saying that she might bring us to the beach with 'no sand' again.
'A beach without sand isn't a beach,' he will remind me, though I'm sure natives of the notoriously stony Croatian coastline might beg to differ.
I like my beaches like I like my men: uncomplicated and highly accessible at all times. As a result, Ventry is our west Kerry beach of choice, so if you do want to cop an eyeful of me in my sensible swimwear, you know where to go.
When heavily pregnant with Number Two, this beach was also the subject of Number One's biggest tantrum to date when I failed to read the cues and he got overtired of an afternoon.
For this reason, I am hit with a serious case of PTSD every time we grace the sands with our very pale, very brief presence.
If you don't bring the kids to the beach, your options are even bleaker. What other parts of the country have in forests, west Kerry has in mountainous terrain — a beautiful backdrop, but significantly less effective at cooling you down and not half as much fun to climb as trees.
Because we don't have any forest walks, we must resort to the playground, where the children will receive third-degree burns from the monkey bars and happily watch as the tarmac melts before our very eyes. Fun in the sun, indeed.
On a rainy day, give me a cereal box and a permanent marker, and I will keep my children entertained for hours, or at least until I've finished three-quarters of my tea, which is pretty good going.
Faced with the prospect of filling a sunny afternoon, I get stumped pretty quickly. Honestly, I don't know how those Californian mothers do it, and they usually do so minus any carbohydrates or refined sugar, so their ability to parent in the sun is doubly impressive.
While I don't want to jinx myself, looking out at the sky, I think I can just about see a grey cloud on the horizon, and if that is the case, I for one, am thrilled. When it comes to parenting, it really is a case of more rain, less pain, especially when you own a telly.
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