I stroll through battersea park at least once every couple of weeks, regardless of the season – I like to watch the Thames slip by for a bit. But it’s around this time of year that I start to get really smug about working so near the place. I’m sitting here in my favourite spot beneath the pagoda by the river – a gift to London from a Japanese buddhist sect in 1985 to commemorate Hiroshima – enjoying the sunshine, and watching the people passing by. Sometime in the last few weeks a place that rents out recumbent bikes has opened up in the park, and they look like the sort of thing I’ll have to try another time. I didn’t try the boating lake last year, either, and I quite fancy that, too.

For now, though I’m just going to indulge in my favourite bit of this time of year, and read my book in the sun.