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Contrary to the long-term forecast made by the Met Office in the UK earlier this year, we are not enjoying the 'barbecue summer' the weather experts had promised us. Indeed, apart from a couple of weeks in June, it has been rainy, cloudy and cool much of the time. Wimbledon enjoyed some warm weather for its annual tennis tournament, and strawberries and cream were consumed by the bucket, but since then, it has been pretty wet and miserable.

However, while the newspapers have been full of letters and reports about the filthy climate, your correspondent from Devizes in deepest Wiltshire is perfectly happy with the cloud cover. Having read reports about the hot summer in Pakistan and the inevitable power breakdowns, I, for one, am not complaining.

Traditionally, weather is the central topic of conversation here, and rarely does a day pass without a neighbour making a reference to it as we meet briefly. 'Lovely day!', or more frequently, 'I do hope it'll clear up in time for the start of the test match...' The weather gurus and their forecasts are dissected at dinner parties, and people moan about the rain at the weekend when they had gone to a coast resort.

This preoccupation with the weather can partly be explained by the quick changes that can take place in the course of a day. In Pakistan, I recall blazingly hot summers in Lahore when for weeks at a stretch, the daily forecast in the Pakistan Times read 'Hot and dry with variable sky.' Unable to afford an air-conditioner, I failed to appreciate the poetry of the forecast as I sweated through many an unbearable May and June.

Believing the promise of a 'barbecue summer', tens of thousands of Brits decided to spend their summer vacations here (for so-called 'staycations'). Many booked cottages or hotels along the coast, and others planned holidays on trailers. They must be cursing their luck as persistent showers and cool, cloudy days have prevented holiday-makers from swimming and sun-bathing. Travel agents report a sudden surge in enquiries and bookings for trips abroad as the Met Office has been forced to revise its long-term forecast.

Another, more dependable, feature of the English summer is the appearance of scores of crop circles. This odd phenomenon, first recorded in the 17th century, is the overnight emergence of strange, often highly complex, patterns in fields containing standing crops. While they normally seem to prefer wheat and corn fields, they do occasionally appear in different crops. Crop circles have been reported in Australia, Russia, Japan, Georgia and the United States.

Although they have often been brushed off as the work of hoaxers, many contain some curious features that are hard to explain. For one, some of them are so large and complex that it is hard to believe that they could have been created in the dark in a single night. At least one was nearly 800 feet across, and contained a series of intricate patterns. Some of them are reported to consist of plaits of wheat stalks woven together. At several sites, minute iron filings have been detected, and at others, the wheat stalks show signs of expansion.

Although some crop circles have been claimed by pranksters, the majority remain mysterious oddities. One strange feature is that very few have been caught making them, although if people have been creating such elaborate patterns in the dark, they would need light to work in. Farmers would have spotted torches, as would passers-by.

An entire cottage industry of crop-circle tourism has emerged with enthusiasts and experts making their way from one new pattern to another. Wiltshire is a popular site for them, and I have seen several crop circles recently. Farmers get furious at their appearance as not only do they suffer the loss of their crop destroyed in their creation, but also have to put up with the tourists who inevitably show up to take pictures.

Many people ascribe the phenomenon to the proximity of ancient burial sites. Others claim that certain weather conditions cause these odd patterns. But the most popular explanation is that aliens make them in an attempt to communicate with us. Some claim seeing UFOs (unidentified flying objects) in the areas in which crop circles have appeared the next day.

Locals have been known to inform enthusiasts about the appearance of a crop circle to attract tourists, and some farmers charge entrance fees to permit outsiders on to their fields to photograph fresh patterns. This commercialization has strengthened the view that the whole thing is an elaborate hoax. However, this does not explain why crop circles have been spotted across the world, or indeed the size and complexity of some of the patterns. Although most crop circles have appeared overnight, there are reports of some of them being formed spontaneously in broad daylight. Here's an eyewitness account of one such phenomenon seen by a group of people on Starr Hill in Wiltshire 'Suddenly the grass began to sway before our eyes and laid itself flat in a clockwise spiral, just like the opening of a lady's fan. A perfect circle was completed in less than half a minute, all the time accompanied by a high-pitched humming sound.'

Several how-to-make-crop-circle guides have appeared on the Internet. These show how it is possible to create circular patterns by using ropes and planks, but still do not make it possible to make designs of the size and intricacy of many circles that have been photographed over the years.

A quick Google search will show viewers how much interest this phenomenon has generated. One YouTube video purports to show a circle being created by a flying white globe that is described as a UFO. But it is impossible to tell whether the video is genuine.

Not surprisingly, the whole crop circle mystery has attracted the usual group of UFO buffs, nutters and people with lots of time on their hands. They have created several websites and filed hundreds of blogs in which they have given their take on the phenomenon. Fortunately, more serious researchers have also focused on the crop circles, and their research makes for interesting reading. So whenever you have a bit of time, visit some of these websites.