Ahh, summer. Those long, warm, sunny days spent outdoors, the hours punctuated by the cheerful trill of birds and the gentle caress of a warm breeze.

Of course, this being Britain, such descriptions of summer can sometimes feel very alien, as if they happened on some exotic, far-away land. Certainly, the long summer days exist, but warm? This summer it feels as if the sun, along with many Brits, has packed its bag and headed off to err, sunnier climes. It is mid-June and still the temperature stubbornly refuses to rise above 22 Celcius.

The clouds continue to look threatening almost every day, the (chilly) winds continue to howl, and the rains, oh, the rains, how they fall. We did get one hot day last month, and predictably, the day brought chaos to the transport system - the rails apparently expanded too much in the "extreme" (30 Celcius) heat, thus causing major delays to the trains.