THE first warm day, blue skies and sunshine and chaps of an age who should know better were out in their shorts.

Long shorts, short shorts, baggy shorts. It didn’t seem to matter. Summer had arrived and optimism meant bare legs no matter their shape or condition.

I was among them, parading around Huddersfield with my limbs out.

"Summer has arrived," I said.

"Cover your legs up," said Andy. "You look as if you escaped from a Kentucky Fried Chicken shop."

"Certainly not," I declared. "It’s shorts from now until September."

Then the weather turned cold again and I reached for my track suit.

One can only hope that this year we will actually get a summer, especially as more people than ever will be holidaying at home rather than travelling abroad because of the financial downturn and the rise of the Euro.

The new word, apparently, is staycation – which means having a vacation at home.

By heck, it’s almost like turning the clocks back to when special trains took mill workers off to the seaside for the same two weeks every year and Huddersfield closed down.

Happy days.

Somehow I don’t think that will happen. Especially if our summer runs to form and it rains until September. Cash strapped dads in need of family sunshine will mortgage their mothers-in-law as they desperately look for last minute apartment holidays in Benidorm at bargain rates.

"But we won’t be able to eat at Euro prices."

"We’ll fill a suitcase with Marmite sandwiches."

The alternative is to have Jewsons dump a truck load of sand in your back garden, inflate a paddling pool, and install a sunlamp inside your waterproof gazebo.

Oh yes, and wear thermals under your shorts.