Sunny days make us want to take our clothes off. Which makes us think about our bodies. Which makes us look at other people's bodies, which is why most of us turn into a pack of leering weirdos every June. Women are no different from men once the sun starts improving our Vitamin E production. Take El Toro on his tractor. The young, bronzed stallion was staring at me as I looked around the ruins of an old mill near Pau. Heat was zinging off the gravel, giving the moment a lazy unreality. And there sat this young god, no more than 18, shirt off, tractor athrob between his denim-clad thighs. I was chuckling to myself and shaking my head at the sheer effort of will-power it took not to crane my neck his way.
The moment had the hazy atmosphere of a trashy novel. I began thinking in Mills & Boon terms: "'I mustn't smile,' thought the flustered, still attractive mother. Every instinct urged her to flirtatiously play with a strand of hair. She fought the urge to throw her shoulders back and look up at the sky, enhancing her matronly bosom. In a trancelike state, she blissfully endured the moment's innocent yet dangerous sensuality. Then, turning, she acknowledged the boy's stare with a Mona Lisa smile and, almost staggering under the weight of her maturity, wandered back into the old mill."
This summer, I have to accept that time has passed since I was a real head-turner. A farm hand in a village near the Pyrenees is always going to give a six-foot blonde Amazon the once- over, whatever her age. But in London, the old Booth allure is waning with the years. Men my own age fall for my younger sister, which leaves me being leered at by men at opposite ends of the braces-wearing spectrum.
Yesterday, going to the corner shop, I got wolf-whistled at. A lad of about 13 on a mountain bike was pedalling by, hands crossed behind his head. He had already gone past when I heard the old "whe-whew" behind me. It was a bit too belated for my liking. All right, I had my glasses on. And yes, my hair was still wet from the shower. Still, being whistled at, as an afterthought, is about as flattering as having your shoes complimented. "Shame the rest of your outfit has been through the wash so many times, 'cos those shoes look OK."
A friend with a 16-year-old daughter has found herself part of the young-boy phenomenon. Her daughter was sitting bickering with two lads from school at the kitchen table. The boys started coming over most days after school and it was a mystery: why bother, when her daughter was always rude to them? When Ellen put a second round of sandwiches in front of them, her daughter barked: "Would you both just get out of my house? You only come over here 'cos you both fancy my mum!" Cue blushes from Ellen, the squeal of trainers on lino and the slamming of the back door.
Summer lust can be difficult even for the neoclassic size-eight waif. My girlfriend was complaining that she only ever attracts "Kylie's leftovers - the sort of gorgeous model types who guarantee nothing but utter misery". Sounds like hell, doesn't it? She claims she would love to be attractive to older men - just not as old as the type of unwashed and elderly blokes who drool at me in the Red Sea Supermarket, she added kindly.
A white-haired West Indian man delivering paints the other day came over all unnecessary as I walked past. He said loudly: "Lady, how did you get so bee-u-ti-ful?" He had his hand to his heart and looked and sounded like someone from a 1950s movie. His closing gambit was: "The only thing I'd put right about choo is . . . how little I've seen of you." With that, he tipped his trilby hat and went back to work.
Tractor Boy and Whistler could learn a lot from their braces-wearing elder.
