Many of you will have woken up on this Bank Holiday Monday, looked outside and thought, 'Tis a grand November morning'.

There's no dressing this one up: the weather today isn't going to be great. Met Eireann's official forecast for the day predicts it to be "generally cloudy...with scattered outbreaks of rain (occasionally heavy and persistent) continuing across the south of the country and slowly extending northwards through the day." The highest temperatures expected are 15 or 16 degrees. But after a rainy night, tomorrow morning will see the cloud break up, resulting in good spells of sunshine (with occasional showers - come on, it's still an Irish summer). We could even get temperatures of 20-21 degrees. We know it mightn't be much use to you on the day you're going back to work, but we have to take what we can get in this country. The rest of the week is forecast to be broken again - with rain and winds, and lower temperatures. But Mother Nature is scheduled to throw us a bone again come Friday, when the weather is predicted to be "mainly dry with good spells of sunshine and highs of 16 - 20 degrees." As for the rest of August, there's no definitive forecast for Ireland yet, but this morning, the UK press is reporting that a heatwave is due to hit that country in the next two weeks. Long-range forecasts in the UK predict bursts of intense heat, with some temperatures reaching 30 degrees and higher. Of course, with that extreme heat will come thunderstorms, torrential downpours and lightning strikes. We can only hope that Ireland gets some of Britain's heatwave cast-offs. At this stage, we'd settle for a hot afternoon.