I sat with the Spanish holiday-makers in the leaky summer house looking out at the torrential rain. It had been pouring for weeks. Would the sun ever make an appearance this “summer”?

Bored with the weather, I made a dash for the pub where my husband worked in exchange for our small flat on the first floor. TPR was serving in the bar, and attracting all sort of attention from one set of drinkers. They were fascinated by his black leather trousers and the question as to whether or not he was wearing any underwear.

Then the weather changed. It was suddenly glorious outside. I persuaded TPR to leave his work for a while and follow me out into the sunshine. Everyone was so happy that summer had finally arrived, and the parks were packed with picnickers. We wanted to relax too, but noticed a family of litter bugs. I boldly strode over to them and demanded that they clear up their mess. This was a huge mistake. The teenage boy turned on us, picked up our tandem as a handy weapon and headed towards our car. It looked like he was planning to put the bike through the windscreen. We knew we had to stop him, otherwise we would have no means of transport for our forthcoming holiday.

(Later I asked a nice middle class murder victim whether she could tell that she would be killed by her assailant. Her response was that it was difficult to judge. Given that she was dead, a more interesting question would have been how we were managing to hold this conversation at all.)