The Wrong Weather.

You know, it’s such a shame having weather like this at this time of year, since the few weeks leading up to and beyond the solstice are obviously when the daylight lasts longest. We have long twilights in northern Europe, in which full darkness doesn’t descend until something past 11 during June and early July. That’s when we can sit out late on balmy evenings with the right thing to drink, and the right thing to smoke, and the right kind of convivial company with which to have the right kind of conversation between sips and puffs. It’s when we can be most attuned to the music of Delius – so sublimely suited to such an atmosphere – at least mentally if not actually. (OK, so I don’t have the convivial company bit to concern me, but that isn’t the point.)

It isn’t quite the same if you’re huddled up in a winter coat with the temperature down in the low fifties, a gale force wind bending your eardrums, and an angry sky rushing purposefully from the north west like it’s intent upon doing battle with the gang from the next street and might well drop a load of cold water on your head in the process of getting there.

It makes you feel cheated.