Colder

Almost as soon as we’d basked in balmy false springhood the wind swung to the north east and we had our bitefull of Arctic air. The house was buffeted by dry squalls and the air in it vibrated as if a fiddle string strung tight in the gale - strange fizzy sounds that made you think momentarily, ‘So, is this it?’

It wasn’t of course and our thick stone walls breasted the howling perturbations. But it made for wakeful sleeping, shuttered in to keep it out.