The heat here is a living thing, fisting the air, a thousand strangers breathing down your neck. But yet, it’s strangely friendly, unoppressive. I’ve learned its secret, or at least one of the many unfolding ones: don’t throw the first punch, and it will be a perfect gentleman.

This heat I can live with, when there’s fireflies, and everyone smiles, and car horns are for nothing but to say hello, and the boy in the bookshop reels off a little French and chooses all the books for me.

Now, Pete, the floppy yellow dog, frisks at my feet, I keep watching even more Twin Peaks.