The Whole Hogge With Jacqueline Hogge

SUNBURN is the ultimate two fingers thrown at us fair-skinned Irish and, I believe, the single reason we are treated to the sum total of six days' sunshine per annum. Yes, I'm a tad disgruntled this week as I'm sporting a large patch of red on my back that has tarnished the happy memories garnered from an otherwise perfect day on the beach with the best sandcastle constructors on the west coast. We loaded up the car early on Saturday morning, under the bluest of skies, packing a sumptuous picnic, rugs, towels and even wetsuits to ensure our day went smoothly, without the grievance of damage from the sun. The journey south to Fanore in Co Clare was accompanied by soulful singing from the back seat while the views of the Atlantic Ocean were sufficiently impressive to captivate young imaginations, the owners of which drove the driver to distraction with a range of questions on boats, castles and marine life that would stretch the knowledge base of Magnus Magnusson himself. Yet the mood remained high, as we looked forward to the delights of a glorious stretch of golden strand and clear blue seas to while away the first proper sunny Saturday of the year. We pitched up just in time to secure one of the last official parking spaces and before we left the car, both little people were smathered with the second coating of sunscreen of the day. They were then zipped up into their wetsuits, with boy wonder having to be shoehorned into his, amid much protestation, oblivious to the advantages of such attire when lying on his belly with the waves crashing over him. Of course both lord and lady are blessed with the sallow skin of their paternal genes, whereas their mother and her auburn hair required hourly dosings of factor 50, which she did, in fact, apply. A perfect pitch was acquired midway between the sand dunes and shoreline, which didn't bother us as the tide was a good way out. I had thought lunch would have broken up the day but within half an hour of getting settled, with big sister having dug an impressive trench around her little brother's attempts at sandcastles, the â€ËœI'm hungry' whinging began. I had, I thought, packed a banquet fit for several kings but the locusts that my children become in the great outdoors, wasted no time in obliterating a full-length Parisian baguette filled with wads of ham and chunks of cucumber, along with several bags of crisps, a couple of pots of yoghurts and a fruit smoothie each. The fact each course was accompanied by an infiltration of sand didn't seem to even register as they hoovered up the contents of the picnic basket. Then it was back down to the water for a wave jumping competition, which I of course won, by virtue of the fact I'm not liberated enough to land on my bum in the water, which eliminated the other two contestants. And all the while we were enjoying a rare day of sublime summer, I was slowly grilling under the sun. You see the drawback of being the sole adult on such trips is your younger accomplices aren't the best at administering sun cream to the bits you yourself cannot reach. I suppose I should admit here that I failed to ask either of my charges to slap some cream on their mammy's back, but given that they managed to cover themselves, head to toe in sand within seconds of reaching the beach, any attempts to help me out would have been in grainy vain. The final nail in the coffin was the realisation that every other inch of me that had been covered either with clothing or Ambre Solaire, was fine - still white, but pain free. The area between my shoulder blades, on the other hand, was completely fried, and didn't seem to be an issue until the journey home. What started out as a slight tingle as we drove through Ballyvaughan had developed into full-scale throb by the time we reached home. By the grace of God there was a bottle of aloe vera gel in the house (origins of which are unknown) and that's when my nursemaids came into their own, trying their best not to laugh as I wriggled and whinged as they applied it with gusto. Let's face it though, I wouldn't be Irish if I didn't complain about what has been the nicest stretch of weather in possibly the past two to three years, and looks set to continue. Queuing for a 99 ice-cream last week, I engaged in the almost compulsory banter about soaking up every second of sun before the rain returns, which some are already praying for, lest this short-lived heat wave develop into a full-on drought. We spend 364 days praying for some fine weather and as soon as the sun does permeate the clouds for any kind of duration, we're whinging that we can't cope with the heat. True, as I mentioned earlier we're not the best equipped for warmer weather, given that any exposure of our milky-white complexions to the sun tend to result in angry red patches. Then there is the unique breed of Irish male who think that abandoning shirts and swaggering around topless will turn them into Amazonian hunks by sunset. The fact they end up looking more porcine that Pacific islander doesn't seem to register as the next sunny day will see them continuing the process, all the while singeing more and more of that pale Irish pallor. I think the reason I'm so disgruntled with my own sun faux pas is the fact I've been burnt so many times down through the years I have in fact learned that factor 50 is the only way to go. The childhood episodes can be blamed on parents who with five children and a blatant ignorance regarding sun damage in the early 1980s can be forgiven for letting one or two of us fall asleep on Silver Strand the odd Sunday afternoon. But in later years, the fact a hobo accosted me on the street in Queensland to inform me I looked like a bloody stop sign, was a cruel reminder of the fact I'll never quite nail the Amazonian look myself, so it's better to be sun safe on these rare days of Irish summer weather.