In the heat of the night/Summer in Geneva

Anyone who has watched a movie or read a book about 'the South' - be it Sidney Poitier starring in 'In the heat of the night' or Tom Cruise as the southern lawyer in 'The Firm', will instinctively know how sweltering and sticky summer can be.

It is finally summer here in Geneva. After several false starts and rain that seemed to last for biblical periods, the sun has come to stay for the next three months.

Long-legged girls wearing bikinis sunbathe and swim in the lake whilst their tanned boyfriends hang awkwardly around their cars or horseplay a little too self-consciously with buddies.

The businessmen in town are hurrying to meetings in short-sleeved shirts, and ladies of leisure go shopping at a cool pace in bare shouldered dresses and open top sandals that show freshly tanned legs and pedicured feet.

Sunsets bring welcome relief from the intensity of the days heat and the first whispers of a cool evening breeze satisfy almost as much as that first icy cold drink.

The nights can be too warm though and sleeping in the humidity is a restless and unsatisfying affair - I always awaken feeling somehow short-changed and hoping for a cooler night to catch up on that lost sleep the next night.

But summer is full of energy and promise and I look forward to all the wonderful things it brings. Evening concerts in the open-air, sunset walks along the lakefront, the extra-long days where the sun doesn't set until ten, and hikes in the fresher altitudes of the mountains which are bursting with life.

Yee-har!