Susan Morrison: To be fair, the weather isn’t something we’re good at...

Usually I find myself standing next to drookit Americans at the bus stop apologising for the rain. This generally happens in any of the months that the rest of the world calls summer, you know, June, July or August. It’s a first to be on a bus next to tourists from New Mexico squeaking in brand new rainwear apologising for the heat.

So. This is global warming, is it? Well, I guess the Scots could get used to this. I mean, this is a perfect season for a nation known for its canny handling of money (if we overlook Sir Fred) After all, the rest of the world has madly splashed out on those natty summer fashions whilst we can pick up an entire outfit in the sales.

And just think how much money we can save on the sunscreen and lotion. For one thing, it’s all half price right now and for another, it’s sunny alright, but it gets dark earlier, thus cutting down our exposure to harmful rays.

For the austerity hit cost conscious nation, late summers could be the way ahead.

In fact, why stop here? The annual credit card jamboree known as Christmas is thundering across the horizon. Let’s move the whole thing to January when the sales are on. Anyway, that whole Christmas/ Hogmanay calendar clash at the end of the year is, frankly, an event planning car crash.

Far more sensible to space out the Festivities for a whole month.

It’s not as if we haven’t messed about calendars before.

We once used the Julian calendar to measure our years. It wasn’t as accurate as the Gregorian calendar, which everyone duly adopted in 1752.

But the tiny island of Foula, way up in Shetland, said ‘stuff that’, and stuck with the Julian one, which means their Christmas day is on January 6.

Er ... if there are any children reading this, I have it on good authority that Santa just pops back.