Much like the rest of the country, I am, at the time of writing this, in a state of disbelief that our usual bleak, grey nation is currently in the grip of the longest heatwave since 1996.

Who’d have thought that the true-to-form completely useless Met office, who appear to be about as good at long-range weather forecasting as my 10-year-old son, could have ironically triggered this spell of unseasonably blissful weather by predicting 10 years of summer gloom.

This week, Team Rees have begun our annual summer sojourn to beautiful Devon. We spend all year kidding ourselves that we are saving the planet by avoiding the four-hour plane journey to guaranteed sunshine and instead opt for a week on a remote Devon beach, imagining ourselves as extras in the cult surf film Point Break and picking sand out of curly and warm egg sandwiches.

This year it’s hard not to feel a teeny bit smug at this curious twist of fate. English seaside and 30 degree heat, not a combination we are used to.

Much like hairdressers, dental surgery small talk is a large part of our day and at this time of year, weather and holidays are the staple subjects.

My poor long-suffering (and incidentally amazing) dental nurse, Tara, has listened to me wax lyrical about the delights of Devon since mid-March.

At that stage, I wasn’t feeling quite as smug. For the past month, I have discussed every aspect of our climate with anyone passing through.

I’ve observed a strange phenomenon afflicting a large proportion of the over 60s including my own father.

The number of totally unnecessary layers of clothing worn even in warm weather increases with the years. “I can’t stand this hot weather, bring back the cloud,” were the words of a less than cheery patient, circa 75 years old.

I bit my tongue from retorting: “How about you take your winter coat and two jumpers off in this 30 degree heat? It may reduce your core temperature by 50 degrees.”

The last few weeks have also seen the start of the daily suncream battle between me and the three children. Mornings have rather comically descended into a Benny Hill-like farce of me chasing around the house at 8am randomly squirting clouds of factor 30 at them.

I’ll be honest, they may not be brilliantly protected against sunburn and I’m pretty sure our dog is wearing more SPF on a daily basis.

They do have clean teeth though…

My own childhood memories of long hot summer days running barefoot and probably creamless from April to October are doubtless remembered through very rose tinted glasses but come on, 1996!

Seventeen years can’t have dulled the senses that much. One downside of wall-to-wall sunshine is the havoc it plays with blonde highlights. I am currently sporting a look somewhere between most of the cast of The Only Way is Essex and the blonde one from ABBA.

“Why have I been booked in to see the new dentist for my check-up? I usually see Katherine,” asked a lovely patient of mine.

Let this be a lesson to me: ease up on the lemon juice and peroxide and slap on the factor 30.

Oh well, vive la Jetstream. By my reckoning it’s going to be 2040 before we get another summer like this and by that stage I’ll be sporting my winter woollies anyway…. I’m off for a surf lesson and a squashed sandwich. Let’s enjoy it while we can.