No apology for enjoying summer.

It has been the most beautiful summer. Day after day of delicious golden warmth, soft, honeyed mornings, dry afternoons that feel like holiday and sticky nights that follow, I’m tanned from lunches taken in the garden and long dog walks where the air smells of soft fruits, blossom, cut grass and dust.

I love the changing seasons, but this summer has been so generous that it feels almost eternal.

Of course, if you think every warm day is an omen of apocalypse, you’ll have been sweating for more than one reason. But if, like me, you don’t see one glorious season as a herald of doom, then it has been bloody lovely.

These days, everything is bad news. It rains: bad news. It shines: bad news. Weather maps glare red with danger zones, like we are in a constant heat emergency. Unapologetically, in my heart, there are just old-school yellow sun stickers.

Laurie Lee captured summer’s spell better than anyone: “Bees blew like cake-crumbs through the golden air, white butterflies like sugared wafers, and when it wasn't raining a diamond dust took over which veiled and yet magnified all things.” That’s exactly how it has felt.