I slept late on Sunday and woke up, eventually, to a beautifully, summery day. It feels like so long since I saw a summer at home. The days have been getting longer and warmer, but this is the first real heat. I threw on a bikini, grabbed an old beach-towel and headed out to lie in the sun. There is something so utterly luxurious about lying in the sun, just lying there with a book, doing nothing but soaking up the sunshine. There was a tiny, delicate breeze, just ticklingly moving the air across my shoulders. The sun’s warm caress touched my arms and my legs and pooled warm light on my lower back. My skin rippled and glowed.

The air smelt like a hot summer, like dry, warm grass. It was perfectly quiet except for the birds and a Sunday service of African voices raised in song in the distance. I felt at peace.

Later in the day, still comfortably warm and rejoicing in being able to wear a sun-dress, I savoured the crisp first sip of chilled white wine – the taste of hot, South African summer. How I missed this crispness and the contrasts of hot days and chilled wine.

Today is warm again, but the early morning breeze is fresh. I love early summer mornings – hot enough not to feel chilly, not to want to put on layers and layers of clothing, but still with that little breeze of freshness welcoming you to the day before the heat asserts it’s overwhelming power.

The cool weather may not be gone just yet. Cold fronts may still return. But for me this taste of summer, this tactile joy of warmer weather to come is a tantalising promise of just how full of wonderful heat and warmth and summer my next few months will be.