Summertime is here but how long will it last?

When I uttered those words to Himself at the weekend I got a tirade about how the days would get shorter and winter would be here in no time. This is the general scenario every year in this house with subsequent days of gloom expected.

Himself has never liked June 21 being mentioned, considering it all downhill after that. I’ve come to the conclusion this mid-summer gloom is a man thing. I noticed my colleague Ben Lowry complaining in his column at the weekend about this very thing.

My brother too would like the long days to last for a longer time. Sadly there are no scientific solutions to this seasonal problem.

Women, on the other hand look forward to the end of June when the children are out of school and there are no packed lunches to make, uniforms to press or homework to supervise.

As a child the start of the school summer holidays had me euphoric as I simply loathed school and couldn’t wait to be free to be outdoors when we could camp out on the shores of Lough Neagh with friends and cousins roasting potatoes on an open fire – about our only source of food for the duration.

Big families in those days meant automatic cricket and rounders’ teams.

Our mothers never saw us until teatime. Those were truly idyllic days and, of course, the weather also seemed idyllic too though I’m sure it wasn’t always like that.

Two headlines drew my attention this week triggering those childhood memories, reminding me how fortunate we were.

One indicated that a quarter of children today under two have their own tablet and the other accused social media firms of acting ‘like drug barons’ to hook children. We’re all aware that mental health issues in the very young are on the rise with children so addicted to social media and computer games that doctors now believe their addictions need to be treated on the NHS. How sad this is.

I doubt if children know how to entertain themselves these days though some parents are making heroic efforts to detach them from their mobile phones. The good spell of weather has filled our beaches. While the children play it’s the mums now sitting on the beach towels glued to the mobile phone!

The contrast in family lifestyles in the 60 years since I was a child is beyond imagination.

Successive governments have encouraged mothers into the workplace with no thought, I imagine, going into how the children would be looked after during the long summer and other school holidays.

One brave mum has given up her career for the sake of her family.

The SDLP’s Sharon Haughey-Grimley is giving up her role as councillor on Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough.

Her 14 year career in politics included a year as Lord Mayor. She is giving up council life she says to devote more time to her three sons.

She told the Belfast Telegraph this week she had to make the right choice for her family: ‘‘The boys need their mummy at home as much as possible.’’

Politics, even at local level, is demanding and I can’t imagine how mums manage the rigours of standing for election, the endless meetings, public engagements and sorting out problems for constituents.

I cannot possibly imagine it can be conducive to family life especially where there are very small children. Is it any wonder that in the top 100 company jobs in Northern Ireland just three are held by women?

It’s nine days since the longest day this year. It was a significant birthday for one of my siblings.

Three generations of us celebrated that event and those little ones were the reminder for us oldies that time is moving on for us.

We might have a decade and a half of `longest days’ to enjoy and we might not. I told Himself to ‘get over it’.