When will it get warm again Dad?

I heard a little lad say to his Dad the other day, "when will it get warm again Dad" - we've had a few days of cold-ish weather and the poor little fella has already had enough.  You can't blame him, he's not been around that long and has eternal summer on his mind.  It reminded me of a conversation I had with some really bright business people at the Yorkshire Board Dinner at Rudding Park (it's how I roll) a while ago.  Their general view was that economic activity wont get back to pre-recession levels until 2018.  So, that's five years, on top of the two or three years we've already served then...... Happy days people, happy days.  For what its worth I agree, its going to take a fair while to 'grind' through the Euro-zone crisis, not to mention our own joyful relationship with British based banks as Joe Public is the proud owner of a number of blue chip banks or the American economy (aaaargh!).  When you add in domestic consumer debt then you have a winning hand in the game of 'slow down the economy' whilst we 'pay off our bar bill'.  Depressing isn't it?  Well no, not really its just the reality we all have to deal with (check out 'we are where we are').  We can't wish it away, so we have to deal with it.  I get around talking to all sorts of people - some money types, some on the ground types and I'm always impressed with our general ability to adapt....... Humans are quite cool gadgets really and they can handle an amazing amount of pressure and change whilst still coming up smiling. The public sector strikes wont help, even if gold plated pensions are under threat - we'd be better focusing on doing our jobs, getting our heads down - pulling together (yes, I said pulling together, how about that for a concept) and grinding our way through this.  Come on Yorkshire, lets lead the way!