Swelter.

It’s almost too hot to be outside during the day. Sultry, sweltering, stifling: the sky is barely disturbed by a cloud and there’s hardly a breeze in the air. Everything is sluggish, torpid. Even the hovering insects in my garden, carefully nurtured by years of chemical avoidance, are still. I try to read my book, but it’s too warm. All I can do is to lean back in my seat, close my eyes and feel the sun on my face. I try to memorise the feeling for the dark cold days that are to come. I can hear the twinkle of the wind chimes, disturbed by the gentlest of breezes: the soft whisper of the air on my flesh is intense. The heat and the sun and the stillness seem to intensify the senses. 

At night, especially tonight, it is Mediterranean – airless and still. It is not like a night I will sleep much, I think, as I turn on the hose outside. The steps of the house are covered with pots, a jumble of them, stuffed with flowering plants – purple verbena, red geraniums, lilac lobelia. I love watering the plants at dusk on a hot summer's night, as the stars open overhead and the warm air wafts the scent of honeysuckle and nicotiana through the garden, wrapping like a stole around the house. The air is especially thick with perfume tonight and the house is too warm to be in, especially upstairs where the heat has settled, no matter that all the windows are open. It’s a night for sitting out under the stars, with candles flickering and a glass of red wine in my fist and the stillness of the summer settling around me.