Last night the air-conditioner box (one of those where you have to put an exhaust hose out the window) woke me up when it started spluttering and throwing hot air instead of cold. Well, I suppose that would be the day when it happened. I'd bought it soon after I moved into this flat, five years ago, at the hardware shop at the corner that then became a café then an Indian restaurant then another café and finally now a hairdresser's, so I suppose it paid its due, for those perhaps two weeks in the year when it's useful or necessary. But useful it was, on those admittedly very infrequent occasions in such a grey, wet, cold island as this normally is.

It wasn't that yesterday! It was difficult to work in the heat but it didn't actually feel to me as bad as on similar occasions in previous years. I don't have to go in the tube at peak hours, so at least I don't have to put myself through that, with people reporting 45º in some lines yesterday.

Come November I may miss this... no, actually, no I won't, or I won't miss the hottest days, at any rate. I like the summer, I'm a little more awake (or less dozy) than at other times, I feel that the things I do (guitar practice in particular) work more smoothly and productive. For a child of the tropics, though, it may be odd that I don't like the heat. Anything above about 25º begins to be a bit uncomfortable and above 30 or so it becomes really uncomfortable. I do whinge a lot, don't I.

Tags: life in london, weather