The road has melted. I drove around to see mum when the sun was at its height and the day was so hot it had pushed the cat into the shade of the flowerbeds. As I pulled off the black tarmac I took with me two stripes of road on the wheels of the car, and lay them down on the hot grey surface of the driveway.

And to be honest, that’s the way it’s been all day. Unbearable. Chelmsford was deserted. The high street was empty. The shops, in spite of the ‘back to school’ offers, were empty. Even Starbucks was empty, although that could have been more to do with the fact its ice machine had broken down and nobody could face a hot coffee, even beneath an air-con vent.

Crossing over the bridge into Backnang Square, I looked down into the river and there, just below the surface of the water, was 200 little fish. I didn’t count them, so perhaps there was even more. They all faced upstream, looking with longing at the shade beneath the bridge.

It soon became clear why they paddled static where they were: on the other side of the bridge were the big fish, easily three or four times their length, and way way fatter too. They milled around in a menacing shoal, enjoying the cool of the shade the bridge afforded them, looking back with spite at the smaller fish with whom they had to share the river.

I wish I could have been in there with them.

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