I am a person of milk-bottle paleness whose natural complexion was once described by my late lamented Auntie Mollie as "the colour of bad jam".
In the past week's glorious weather I've been sloping about the house with the blinds at half-mast because 10 minutes' exposure to bright sunlight and I'm stencilled with sunburn, red as a road sign, which metamorphoses into a generous mottling of freckles that never ever join up to make a tan.
This is the legacy, or rather, affliction, of being born ginger. Inured early to catcalls of "Ginger snap, penny a bap - two for tuppence ha'penny" (which struck me even at that age as an economically unsound deal), I'm resigned to perpetual pallor and lifelong reliance on cosmetics lest I frighten people in the streets.
As a youngster, exposure to the elements was unavoidable. We were put to play outdoors rain or shine.
Summer trips to the seaside or country, school Phys.Ed. and team games (at which my celery-stick limbs proved singularly inept) involved further damage from the elements.
In those days before sunscreen I had to be anointed with calamine lotion which dried to a murky pink as if I'd fallen in a bucket of plaster.
To this day hot weather activities hold little appeal. Sitting squinting and sweating in the sun on damp grass, wet sand or splintery rustic benches are equally uncomfortable; beaches are sand-fly infested, picnics wasp-infested and no matter what the air temperature, the waters of Loughs Foyle and Swilly are equally and paralysingly cold. I wouldn't describe myself as 'outdoorsy'.
Adolescence brought little respite. Sooner out of the world than out of fashion I tried fake tan - with varying degrees of failure.
Inexpert application behind a locked bathroom door, coupled with an uninformed and limited choice of shades taught me it could be mistaken for a bad case of jaundice or a freshly applied coat of Ronseal wood preservative and the discovery to my cost that fake tan is harder to take off than put on.
Gradually it dawned on me that I'd never be convincingly sun-kissed.
I opted instead for the porcelain-pale complexion favoured by the heroines of Georgette Heyer's historical novels with which I was besotted at the time and secretly attempted to eradicate my freckles with neat lemon juice.
How different from today's teen girls for whom cosmetic education starts at six with strawberry flavoured lipgloss and culminates at 16 with the 'prom' and professional appointments for hair, nails, brows, make-up and spray tan. (Personally, I can think of nothing more embarrassing than standing in a booth in paper pants being hosed down with a substance akin to soy sauce.)
They look lovely, but older than their years and I mourn the obliteration of the traditional Irish complexion of 'roses and cream' sacrificed to a uniform shade of biscuit.
Removing most of your clothes to 'take the sun' is a relatively modern concept.
Previously, only the poor and outdoor workers were tanned by the elements.
I remember an old cattle drover with a ruddy weatherbeaten face and forearms, reputedly never seen without a cap. I saw him remove it once - exposing a bald dome, white as a peeled egg.
My generation's parents, strangers to leisurewear, remained fully clad on the beach.
Dads rolled up their shirtsleeves and trouserlegs, mums discarded their stockings, girded up their skirts and went for a cautious paddle.
Beachwear today has shrunk to the borders of decency - and beyond. It looks best on the young and little, which is not always the case.
The average Irish beach, alas, lacks the glamour of continental ones. There's a distinct shortage of bronzed Adonises and tawny Beyoncé lookalikes.
Viewed from a distance one sees a heaving mass of humanity as if someone has upended a gigantic sack of Kerr's Pink potatoes over the sand.
While this heatwave lasts, should you spot me by the sea, I assure you it'll only be under duress. That's me in an all-enveloping kaftan, under the awning in the shade, sipping something cool, wearing big dark glasses - and a hat.
