Guys. A bit of good news today. Next week supposedly sees the start of this year's much-talked-about, rarely-seen British Summer Heatwave - which is set to last all summer. If the Met Office is right (and when are they ever wrong apart from always), we're in for the kind of summer that involves stretches of sun lasting over 30 minutes and temperatures that sit north of 20 degrees all day. The kind of weather that they enjoy on mainland Europe from May through to about September, every day, all day.
With great heat though, comes great responsibility. There's a reason why coastal-dwelling Spaniards have managed to live successful, moderately healthy and fulfilling lives for thousands of years whilst we can't manage a week there without causing significant damage to our liver, lungs, skin and social lives. It's because, like Kylie Jenner and her plastic lips, we Brits go too hard too soon.
So afeared are we that this sun might be the last snatch of vitamin D we'll get until next spring that we are tuned to subconciously attempt to fit an entire summers' worth of summertime activities into one solitary day.
Now though, we've got three months of heat to look forward to. And so we're going to have to work on stopping you going from 0-100 by the beginning of June.
Here's a few handy hints
1. Remember you are not a failure if you head home after work on a sunny day
Like the Sirens in Homer's The Odyssey, mid-week pub goers drinking on the street serve as enticing distractions tempting you to into dangerous behaviour with their wicked songs. Of course their 'songs' are less beautiful-but-solemn melodies and more 'WAHEY LADS GET EM IN BARNSEY' but the end result is the same; you feel as though you should, nay must round up some friends and drink in a beer garden when really you should just go home. Drink every day for a week though and by the time Saturday, a day you could feasibly spend all day basking in Helios' rays, rolls around you're tucked up in bed with the grown-up version of freshers' flu. So, upon leaving work or university on a sunny day, keep your head down, don't catch anyone's eye and focus on your evening in at home until you reach the safety of your front door. Begone street drinking harlots and your dangerous temptations.
2. If you're not going to a festival, don't purchase any clothes from the 'festival range'
You know what Spanish and French people wear in the summer? The same stuff they wear in the winter. Except made from lighter materials and a lesser amount of fabric. British Festival Culture though has become so ubiquitous that flower crowns, glitter tattoos and voluminous fisherman pants that look more Cheltenham-Public-School-Girl-In-Koh-Samui than Goan-Yoga-Goddess are now commonplace on the streets of cities and towns around the country during the summer months. See Vanessa Hudgens at Coachella for visual aids.
3. Be a Responsible Rachel when it comes to day drinking
The other day we had a German friend staying with us. It was hot so we sat in the garden and my British mate cracked open a beer. It was about 4PM. He'd had a few at the park earlier too. 'You've been drinking beer all day?' Said Günter (not his real name. Obviously) incredulously. 'And you will keep drinking this evening??' He continued, apparently baffled. Which made us think. The Germans love beer. The Germans love beer more than we do. The Germans probably feed their babies beer instead of milk when they're born and yet here's a real life German judging us on how much beer we're drinking. Clearly our concept of 'how to enjoy beer' and 'how much beer is acceptable to drink in a day' has gone very wrong at some point down the line. It's like a Russian telling you to 'calm down' on the vodka shots. Or Justin Bieber telling you to 'stop being a prick'.
4. Don't culturally appropriate in the name of summer
We had this talk. We had this talk last year, and the year before, with special focus on the Native American headdresses which are still on sale and which people still insist on wearing to festivals despite numerous complaints from members of the Native American population saying that they're wildly offensive. Land Of The Free does not mean 'free to dress up in a cute outfit worn by people that were persecuted and marginalised over a period of several hundred years'. See also bindis, dreadlocks and cornrows, unless of course any of those do herald from** your culture - in which case, go wild, look ace.
5. Don't ever say it's too hot
Unless something goes very, very wrong, it's never going to be too hot in this country. The hottest day ever recorded in Britain was 37.4 degrees. That's three degrees less than what people do hot yoga in. You're young, you're fit, you can totally handle one day of baking heat in exchange for 364 below average ones.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.