Writer's (sun)block

THE NIGHTS ARE drawing in now, and Summer is fading. It's time to get back to work.

That's not to say that I've been on holiday for the last couple of months. (I wish!) I haven't been anywhere. As you might have heard, throughout Summer 2018 the UK wilted in the most powerful heatwave on record. It has, quite simply, been too damn hot for me to concentrate on anything.

If I were a more poetic type, I'd wholeheartedly agree with Oscar Wilde:

Have you ever noticed how the sun detests thought? The sun always causes thought to withdraw itself and take refuge in the shade. Thought dwelt in Egypt originally, but the sun conquered Egypt; then it lived for a long time in Greece, and the sun conquered Greece, then in Italy, and then in France. Nowadays all thought is driven back as far as Norway and Russia, places where the sun never goes. The sun is jealous of art.

A high-faluting way of putting it, as one might expect, but I can't fault the basic observation.

As the days shorten, and autumn slowly descends over Kingston Upon Thames (pictured right), this writer's world returns to normal. "Normal" usually being a dim and quiet little bubble of concentration, the horizons of which are the keyboard, the screen, the pile of books beside the desk -- and of course, the kitchen, where it's necessary to go to make regular cups of tea.

That solitary upper-storey window at three a.m., casting a sliver of domestic light onto the silent street below? That's me, that is.

New stuff is on its way.