Only thing crazier than Scotland's weather is our national football team's winning streak – Vladimir McTavish

Rain-soaked and possibly also sun-burned Tartan Army look to be heading to Germany

Wednesday was the shortest night of the year, with the sun setting in Edinburgh at 10.30pm. We’ve had several days of heat, Wimbledon is just around the corner and the toilets have returned to Inverleith Park. It’s now officially summer.

And it wouldn’t be summer in Scotland without the rain. Quite a lot of rain, in fact. Last Sunday, my daughter asked me to do some acting in a video she was making for a friend’s band. My scene was a seaside-postcard-cum-Carry-On parody, and we were filming on Portobello beach. The day started in glorious sunshine until the wind picked up in mid-afternoon. It suddenly turned very cold but we all had to continue acting as if it were a balmy summer day by the seaside. Admittedly, it was hard to ignore that we were by the seaside as my mouth was by now full of sand.

Not long after we had finished filming, the heavens opened and the day ended with a cataclysmic thunderstorm. Of course, as Scots we are used to our schizophrenic weather, where blazing sun can turn to torrential downpour in the blink of an eye. To tourists visiting our country, it is a source of constant bafflement.

For much of the past week, I have been acting as a tour guide for my American cousins, who are visiting from New Jersey. One got in touch on Facebook before she left home, as news of our “heatwave” had reached the States. She wanted to know what she should pack. I told her to prepare for any eventuality.

Of course, there is little doubt that the craziest weather of the week was happening on the west side of the country. On Tuesday, as we sweltered in a hot evening in the capital, 40 miles along the M8, the rainfall was positively biblical, which hugely impacted the running time of Scotland’s Euro 2024 qualifying game against Georgia at Hampden Park. All of this was unbeknown to me at the time, as I had been having a meal with my cousins who do not really understand “soccer”.

I decided to once more try my luck at avoiding knowing the score before watching the recorded highlights on BBC Scotland at 10.40pm. Fortunately, I managed to do this but I also managed to avoid finding out about the 90-minute rain delay.

Getting home and turning on the telly, I couldn’t work out why the highlights were not being screened so checked the BBC website. The reason the highlights weren’t being shown was because the game hadn’t finished. It finally ended around 11.30, which meant that fans from Edinburgh faced the choice of missing the end of the game or missing the last train home. Remarkably, most chose to stay and watch despite having to endure an hour-and-a-half in soaking conditions waiting for play to resume. Still, Scotland won which is the main thing.

Callum McGregor splashes through the Hampden puddles to score Scotland's opening goal against Georgia (Picture: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

While Tuesday night’s events may have been bizarre, even more surreal is the standings in our qualifying group which see Scotland eight points clear at the top with a 100 per cent record. The Tartan Army can now realistically hope of reaching the finals in Germany next June. That sounds even crazier than the quirkiest Scottish summer.