JULY is well dented and it keeps raining. This is the second summer in a row of rain and wind, an occasional elusive hour of sunshine, then more rain and more wind.

It is not surprising that we are one of the most rheumaticky races in the whole world. It is not surprising that we talk about the weather so much.

It is surprising that we all hope that it will be improved tomorrow. We should know better by now.

Look at the globe and it reveals a bitter truth, especially in relation to our English neighbors. The two islands resemble a witch (England) walking into the wind behind a battered and bending umbrella. And Ireland is the umbrella!

The unending storms and winds and rains come howling across the briny Atlantic, and we absorb the worst of them on behalf of the Sassenach. By the time they get as far as London the grey and black clouds have peed themselves dry on top of Paddy and Bridget and Mary, and the sun can easily shine warmly through them down on top of Big Ben and Tower Bridge. It’s enough to break a man’s heart.

There’s all this talk internationally about global warming. Here’s one man who has not experienced any of that yet, and who is of the view that maybe a little bit of it would do us no harm at all.

The facts are that the initial stages of this so-called deadly threat to mankind amount to global chilling of the west coast of Ireland. Our latter day summers are certainly becoming colder and wetter.

June was the dampest June on record on this island, and July seems set to establish a similar record. The way things are going future generations of Irish will be born with webbed feet.

It is raining very heavily just now. I’m looking out through the four streaming panes of one of the cottage windows.

I have a gargoyled kind of view of a waterworld outside, grey skies, tiny little apples shivering on Maisie’s apple tree. We transplanted five sunflowers out of the Dutch Nation’s little glasshouse yesterday because their heads were hopping against the roof. The wind had four of them beheaded this morning and the fifth lad, all bedraggled and drenched, will be lucky if he lasts this day out.

The remarkable reality is that so many of ye who come on vacation to Ireland don’t seem to notice the rain at all. You come well prepared for it, in all fairness, and many of you actually seem to enjoy the rain!

I’ve met visitors from states like Arizona and Nevada who hold their (tanned) faces up into the showers and say we should sell our “soft rain” as a perfect moisturizing cream.

It is equally true that all of us hate it with all our beings, even though we were born and bred to this climate and, even today, are rarely clad properly to deal with it.

Worse still when we escape abroad to the bright sunlight and dry climates of Europe, we are not able to withstand the heat at all! We get crabbit and sunburned scarlet during the first two days no matter how much lotion we apply, and spend the rest of our weeks or fortnights recovering and groaning.

And when we get back home we are nearly as happy to see a shower as those good ladies from Nevada!

I realize you have had your own weather troubles this year. Often enough I’ve picked up some of your weather forecasts, especially from the midwest, and I now know what a levee is and what it looks like when its burst.

And none of us anywhere in the world will ever forget New Orleans. And the same goes for the recent European experience with all the great rivers bursting their banks and causing heavy flooding.

But the thing about the American weather maps, as I see them, is that if it is raining and flooding in Illinois there is another state just a few hours drive down the highway which is basking in the sun. There’s an escape route.

On this small island there is no escape route except emigration, and I’m beginning to consider that more and more seriously as these drenched times continue.

I remember again what my late beloved father-in-law Mick Conlon said to me 20 years ago when, over a pint, I asked him what was the greatest invention during his lifetime. He was then in his eighties.

I thought he would reply that TV was, or the then emerging cell phones, or maybe man reaching the moon. But he replied without hesitation that the best invention during his long farming lifetime was the rubber Wellington boot which kept Irishmen dryshod through the winter, and accordingly prolonged their active lives. More and more that seems like real wisdom nowadays.

Dearest Caty, if it is of any interest to you, the rain has stopped to take a rest before returning inside the hour. I can see through the window now, and can sadly report that the last sunflower has perished since I mentioned it above.

It’s golden head is lying forlornly on the drenched grass.