The summer holidays are getting closer and at work you can feel their gravitational pull, sucking the dedication and enthusiasm out of people. Every task you are given to do seems to whisper “Do you really need to do me now, or can I wait until you come back?” The weather isn't helping. The heat wave stopped and now we are back to normal, unreliable Scottish weather.

Caution is the watchword among the commuters, since sunshine in the morning can easily be gales by lunchtime. There are more skirts in evidence, but usually with thick tights, nothing less than 20 denier. Jackets have got thinner, sleeves shorter, but shoes don't seem to have got much less sensible. There are also the people who don't change their wardrobe from one season to the next – the men in the suits and macs come rain or shine, and the girls in flimsy ballet pumps and short skirts. I wonder if the local hospitals have to treat frostbite much in winter.

The weather is unreliable, though, rather than actually bad. Thick socks and heavy shoes can be just as unfortunate a choice when the ridiculously intense Scottish sun decides to show itself, and there are plenty of quite nice days with sun coming through the clouds. Some people, though, are determined only to notice the weather when it's bad. London-based forecasters are notorious for this – they don't miss a chance to point out that it's raining in Scotland when it's sunny on the south coast, but they rarely make the point when it's the other way round.

One of my colleagues was also doing her best to uphold Scotland's reputation for bad weather. Speaking on the phone she told the person on the other end, “Oh, it's horrible here – raining!” And what was the weather actually like? A brief glance out the window would have told her that the rain had cleared up and the sun was shining brightly through growing gaps in the cloud. The weather is bad often enough – there's no need to invent bad weather, too.