Thunder rumbled and hail fell and I watched comfortably from the window, wrapped in a dressing gown and nursing a hot cuppa in my octopus mug. Sounds like the perfect Sunday afternoon, but it's only Saturday baby. The dark draws in, an overcast sky makes mid-afternoon look like dusk, and all this calls for hot toddies. Hot toddies made the easy and delicious way, with boiled lemonade poured over whiskey and honey, and served... just normally, in a mug or something. Nothing fancy.

The storm has passed which is a shame because I would have enjoyed that feeling of ensconcement one gets when seeing vicious rain hit that watertight window above the blazing heat of a radiator on full blast. I want a real torrent, turning roads into rivers and wearing tarmacadam down so smoothing out the potholes. The park at the back, with its grass torn up by tire tracks of inconsiderate teenage twats on motorised scooter-mobiles, liquefied and swampificated, deluged, so those little shits must complement their ghastly over-priced tracksuits with sturdy full-length anglers' waders.

Come the hell of high water, the stench of washed out drains, and the peril of floating debris and desperately paddling sewer rats. Come the fall of frozen water to smash windscreens and shatter skulls, fell trees and evict squirrels. Bring it all on and we shall watch through the impenetrable barriers of central heating and double-glazed windows. Move this autumn along into a premature winter, the one we sense approaching, that sets our teeth a-chatter.