I stayed at the front of the flat all morning for a very good reason: the sun doesn’t fall there. I opened the windows, but the gentle breeze coming in felt like it had escaped from a blast furnace as I checked my thermometers.

The temperature outside in the shade at the front of the flat:

…and inside, at the sunny end of the lounge:

…and so that sealed it. I was going to have to go out. I’d spent a couple of hours faffing on with the sites for tonight’s slot on Through the Night, cooked rice for salads for the week ahead, and tried in vein to settle my mind on one task, so giving it all up put the rice in the fridge, packed a bag and set out in the car, heading east for Maldon.

I passed a woman on a motorbike wearing nothing more than a pink bikini and a heavy black bikers’ helmet. She looked very unbalanced. Past her, there was a streak of gritty brown salt on the road, so out of place all these months away from ice, and beyond that Promenade Park, where I left the car, and walked to the marine lake.

The water was thick and green, and full of people, and as I kicked off my shoes and walked towards it across the sand I had to pick my way through the tangle of bathing families. It was worth it. The cool water gently crept up to my ankles and cooled my toes, stinging the scuff marks where my shoes had rubbed my sockless feet red and raw.

The stings were worth it, though. Perhaps it was my imagination, or perhaps it was something biological - something to do with cooling the blood, which takes this welcome drop in temperature all around the body - but I felt better standing there than I have done for days.

I stayed perhaps ten minutes and then walked around the park in my bare feet, feeling the cool soft grass, until I found a shady spot to sit down and read as the world passed by.

It was an idyllic afternoon - so unlike I had thought it might have been, and was capped by the most beautiful little shower of rain. It didn’t last long, but it was a long time coming. You could see it crawling across the sky, approaching from the north and eventually arcing right around the town. The mud flats started to prickle, almost as though they knew the rain was on the way to replenish them, and made a hundred thousand little clicks as bubbles of air squeezed up from beneath the surface and popped in the humidity.

It was a treat that was over too soon.

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