It’s hard to believe that there are people out there who reckon climate change is a load of old codswallop. Jeremy Shapiro has an interesting piece in The Conversation that goes some way towards explaining it. I’m not well up on the science of it all – I only know what I see.

In short sleeves, in the sunshine on the terrace, sipping cocktails on 1 January of one year. Snow on 17 March another.

One day in April, a balmy 29.5 degrees and sunshine and the next mildering out of the high heavens and it’s 7.

I travelled up and down to Budapest on those two days. The difference in the views of Badacsony, listed as the godfather of Transdanubian volcanoes, was remarkable.

Sure, sun one day, rain the next, is nothing to harp on about. It happens. But a drop of 22 degrees takes some getting used to.

That was April though.

We’re now in July.

We’ve had a couple of weeks of temperatures in the high 30s with no respite: 28 degrees at 7 am, 25 degrees at 11 pm.

Bloody hot.

We had visitors last week and ate dinner in the cellar where it’s always about 16 degrees.

I’m grateful we have a cellar.

It’s drippingly hot.

I’ve never seen myself condensate before. (Is that even a verb?)

Outside weeding about 7 pm, I came inside to a house that had had the curtains closed all day. It was noticeably cooler. As I sat in the kitchen with my iced coffee tonic (cold brew coffee and sugar-free tonic water) water dripped down my face and neck. Condensation.

The hot me was wrangling with the cool interior and losing.

It happens any time I go outside for longer than 5 minutes.

I carry one of my dad’s hankies and seem to be constantly mopping my brow and wiping my neck, something I thought only old men did.

What do they say?

Horses sweat, men perspire, but women merely glow.

I’m glowing.

I’ve swapped my matt finish for a satin sheen.

The Balaton is like a bath.

The water in a mate’s swimming pool in BP is 32 degrees.

Even our cold water shower is spewing a tepid offering.

But something magical happened last night.

It rained.

It’s still raining.

Today, it is a lovely 22 degrees (down from yesterday’s 33). The first break in two weeks.

All the windows are open.

The house feels as if its soul is stirring and it’s coming alive.

I can breathe.

Did I mention that it’s raining?

Heaven.

These swings in temperature, this record-breaking heat, this is change.

Big change.

Too much change too quickly.

There’s a lesson there.

Appreciate the day you have, because you’ve no idea what tomorrow might bring.

Okay, you might have some idea. You can analyse the trends and make an educated guess and 99 times out of 100 you might be right, but there’s always that 1%.

Stabbings. Shootings. Random attacks on random people by random others. War. Bombs. Flash floods. Avalanches. Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Drought. Betrayal. Lottery wins. Inheritance. Finding a Van Gogh in a flea market.

Lives change. And change quickly.

Not all lives and not all the time.

But it happens.

On some yet-to-be-fully-explored level, my life has fundamentally changed in the last year.

I’m living with a heightened awareness of loss. I can feel myself becoming less attached to materiality (a good thing).

Instead of railing against what I can’t control, like the weather, I’m picking my battles.

This morning though? This morning I’m going for a walk in the rain.