The weather here has been really rather pleasant, lately: sunny, warm, and humid. The humidity is a little annoying, since clothes take an age to dry and my hair goes fluffy and tangled no matter how much anti-frizz shampoo I use; but apart from that I like this weather. It’s almost enough to make me believe in the mythical long hot British summer of 2005.

I watched it filtered through the lens of the Welsh current affairs show ‘Wedi 7′, you see; the only Welsh language program to be broadcast internationally at the time. The weather was the top story, illustrated by footage of crowded beaches full of sun-worshippers, the presenters themselves scantily-clad as they fanned themselves with their notes, exhausted in the heat.

It all looked terribly inviting, watching as I was from the depths of an icy Melbourne winter, with only my crappy 1000 watt heater and my then boyfriend to keep me warm (Then Boyfriend was skinny and didn’t retain heat particularly well, however; the heater was generally a better bet).

I was suspicious, though. It all looked so very picture postcard perfect. I began to think the whole thing was an elaborate hoax by the Welsh Tourist Board to entice people to holiday in Wales. We wouldn’t know any different, would we, watching from the other side of the world? There was nothing to stop them creating a special version of ‘Wedi 7′ for the tourists. It was the moon landings all over again.

When summer failed to arrive last year - what would have been my first full northern hemisphere summer in years - I considered my theory to have been more or less confirmed. But the last month and a half or so have forced a bit of a re-think. Another few months of this and I’ll accept that that long hot mythical summer of 2005 may, in fact, have occurred.

Till then, however, I remain sceptical.

My anti-histamine medication tells me to inform a doctor if “anything unusual happens”, which hardly seems specific enough to be a side-effect. Even the phrase itself is a little non-specific. For instance, the 7.45 a.m. train arriving at 8 a.m. could be defined as an unusual occurrence - depending on the state of public transport in your area - but is that really unusual enough to warrant an appointment at the local doctor’s surgery? How unusual does the ‘anything’ have to be?

The leaflet also says I should alert my doctor if I feel an “exaggerated sense of well-being”. Again, this doesn’t really give me any specific measuring stick against which I can determine my sense of well-being. Do I need to decide what would be a reasonable sense of well-being, taking into account my life circumstances, and then judge whether or not my current sense of well-being exceeds that which can be justified by circumstances? It’s all very complicated.

Besides, I’m a little hesitant about turning up at my doctor’s surgery to tell her, “Doctor, I’m here to see you today because I just feel so darn good. I don’t suppose you could give me anything for it?”

In fact I do feel a somewhat exaggerated sense of well-being at present, though it’s entirely possible that’s the gin and tonic (it’s sunny here and we just had a barbecue, don’t judge me for it).

I decided to start taking an aerobics class at my local gym recently, having realized that my efforts to get fit by cycling to the local shop to buy Pringles weren’t really paying off. The only aerobics I’ve ever done was at high school, when our regular, more sensible gym teacher was off sick and we had a temporary teacher who was particularly keen on aerobics. She herded us into the sports hall once a week and made us leap around to musical accompaniment. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous (I mean, you can’t win at aerobics can you, so what’s the point?) and couldn’t wait for our regular gym teacher to return so we could get back to playing netball and hockey and badminton. You know, proper sport.

As you can imagine, then, I approached the class with some trepidation. My first discovery was that most of the women who do aerobics have been doing it since their temporary gym teachers who didn’t know how to do proper sport introduced them to it at the tender age of twelve. Aerobics, like applying make-up and styling hair, is apparently something else that the other girls were doing while I was playing backyard cricket.

This was obvious from the outset, as they all jumped and squatted and air-boxed in unison, and I was grateful I’d had the foresight to stay at the back of the room where I couldn’t be as easily observed. There, I could lumber around unobtrusively and it didn’t matter that I did everything a couple of seconds later than the rest of the class.

Or so I thought. About half way through the class, the aerobics instructor bounded like a gazelle to the back of the room and instructed everyone to turn around to face her and resume perfectly coordinated movements. “Crap”, I thought. “These track suit pants really don’t do my bottom any favours, not with me lumbering around at the front of the class like a rhino learning to pirouette”.

To make matters worse, I could scarcely avoid the aerobics instructor’s bottom, located as it was directly in front of me - or rather, I could scarcely have avoided it had it been there, which it wasn’t. The woman had no bottom. I expect she has to wear those padded knickers just to sit down. The comparison wasn’t one that worked to my advantage.

Luckily, after only about half an hour she resumed her original position at the front of the class, and I was able once again to lumber around unobtrusively at the back, pondering how much aerobics one would have to do to render one’s bottom non-existent. I can see I shall have to be careful; those padded knickers are expensive. Fortunately, I don’t think I’m in any immediate danger.

So: aerobics. It was interesting, from an anthropological point of view. I learned that lurking at the back of the room during an aerobics class is a bad idea, since aerobics instructors are as sadistic as temporary gym teachers and will not hesitate to embarrass newcomers. And excessive aerobics leads to the disappearance of one’s bottom. Be warned.

It must be so much easier to shop for clothes to wear at a wedding if you’re a man. “Let’s see… I’ll wear the suit I wore at the last wedding I went to. White shirt or blue? Tricky”. In fact, ’shopping for clothes’ is probably totally unnecessary unless you want to splash out on a new tie. I haven’t spoken to my brother, but I’m fairly certain he won’t even have bothered with the new tie.

I, on the other hand, must have tried on at least half the dresses they stock in Debenhams. I suppose the whole process would be simpler if I frequented weddings and already had a selection of suitable dresses to choose from. But I haven’t been to a wedding in years - in fact, I think I may have been five the last time I went to one, and that dress wouldn’t fit me any more. Plus I was a bridesmaid, and wearing a bridesmaid’s dress to a wedding where I’m not a bridesmaid would probably be bad form.

However, I finally settled on a black and white halter neck dress for my cousin’s wedding this weekend. It’s in Dorset, where his fiancée’s from, so I’m driving down there tomorrow. I haven’t spoken to this cousin more than a handful of times over the last few years, but we were quite close years ago; he spent a summer helping me with a project I had for school (he knew more stuff, being six years older). The only memory I have of the project is that it included some kind of rainbow diagram, so make of that what you will. That was the same summer we went with my aunt to Llyn y Fan Fawr in the Brecon Beacons; I don’t even remember how to get there now, except that it’s somewhere near the dinosaur park (yes! a dinosaur park! how awesome is that?). To get there you climb what seemed at the time like a very steep hill, and then, all of a sudden as you get to the top, a lake spreads out in front of you, as if it had just appeared that minute. It surprised me, I can tell you.

After that summer my cousin went off to uni in Cardiff, got really boring and became a grown-up. We discussed it amongst ourselves, us four cousins who were all about the same age, and decided that his behaviour bordered on traitorous. To be honest, he’s rather lucky we’re all converging on Dorset for his shindig this weekend.

But we are, and so I must pack, since it takes ages and ages to get there and the family is organizing some kind of meal tomorrow evening. I may tweet occasionally. Have a good weekend, all!

I’m back! And my blog hasn’t turned into a porn site in my absence, which is absolutely excellent news. To be frank, it makes a pleasant change.

I really hadn’t intended to be away this long. In fact one of my new year resolutions was to blog every single week, but I made another fifteen resolutions alongside that one (which may have been a tad ambitious, in hindsight), and that one kind of fell by the wayside. Better late than never, though. I have decided it still counts as long as I keep it for the remainder of the year.

I am currently eating olives and mini breadsticks, no particular reason except that they are the only food I happen to have in the cupboard at the moment, and I was hungry. They complement each other surprisingly well.

Do you see the exciting things I’ve been keeping from you in my absence? More of the same to come, I’m sure.