Today I’m suffering the sun guilt. It’s a condition I first identified last year, and while I haven’t been able to cure myself of it, having a diagnosis is definitely helping.

This is what happens.

You get a sunny day, like today for example. It was 25 degrees here, clear blue skies, sunny, a gentle breeze to take the heat off – just beautiful. It’s been like this for a few days, but I was at work then, and today is a day off. Today is my day off and it’s a sunny, beautiful day. And that’s when the sun guilt strikes.

The sun guilt says: you missed all that nice weather while you were at work. But you’re not at work today. You should do something with it. It would be a waste not to do something with it. But my plans today don’t involve lazing around on a beach, or having a barbecue in the garden I don’t have, or playing beach volleyball with some Brazilians. I have other stuff to do. Non-sunny stuff. And then I feel guilty for wasting the sunny day.

What I realised last year was that actually I’m not very good at sunny days. I get sunburnt easily and hot weather makes me tired and sweaty and I’d always rather be in the shade. Sunny weather is wasted on me. I have to accept that it’s OK not to be doing sunny things just because it’s sunny. I have a life to live and sunny days are wasted on me anyway.

But this is the first one of the year and I’m having a pretty hard time with the sun guilt all the same.