The high pressure that normally rests in the centre of the continent has been replaced by a significantly large and slow low pressure cell. This means that we’ve had a very tropical summer here is the valley for the past week. The grumbles that have come with it have been that a thirty-degree day has felt like a forty degree day (and we’ve actually had forty-degree days here) thanks to the high humidity, which has made all the papers in my study damp and weak. Printing has been a nightmare.

The upside of it all has been the rain. Soft yet reliable, every day. People have told me stories of how they’ve spent quiet afternoons actually sitting in the rain, enjoying the discomfort. Some days the rain has been hard, yet people in the street don’t run to avoid it, but come into the office soaked and elated.

We have been very thankful this week.