Sunshine brings out the best in everyone

It had become the season that dare not speak its name — a clandestine continuation of winter, with a hint of spring thrown in for good measure, and, before you knew it, there was autumn again, dank and chilly.

Fantasising wistfully about summer, during those endless winters, became an exercise in futility that was not to be encouraged. Would we ever get any decent bit of weather?

Even a day or two would relieve the monotony. Surely, we deserved it? But it was obvious that most of us didn’t hold out much hope. Summers, it seemed, were for other people, who lived in kindlier climates and who took all that endless sunshine in their stride.