There’s an old poem – by an anonymous author I think – that goes:

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

I’m finding these words very apt at the moment.

During this long, hot spell* it’s difficult to find the motivation to write – or indeed to do anything – in a study that is woefully ill-eqipped to deal with anything other than average temperatures. I seem to be making life even more difficult for my poor, dehydrated brain by ploughing through a particular chapter (number 19 fact fans). The problem is that weather is a defining theme during Between – very simply, the worse things get, the worse the weather. As this particular chapter is near the end of the book and things are getting darker**  it’s all a bit grey and rainy. You can see the issue can’t you? Rainy chapter? Tropical heatwave***. Not conducive. It’s no good, I’ll have to use my imagination and you know how much I hate that.

*I’m not using the word ‘heatwave’ because it always reminds me of the rats in A Muppet Christmas Carol – not necessarily a bad thing, but seasonally inappropriate.
** It’s the middle book of a trilogy, I grew up with The Empire Strikes Back, what did you expect?
*** Damn! Here come those rats again.