Hi there.

Hopefully you both managed to survive the raging inferno that has been the last two days.

Now, a while back, I waxed lyrical about how my new Kindle was the best thing ever.  But over the past couple of days, I have found something that a good old-fashioned book can do, that my Kindle can’t: it can help me to sleep at night when the weather is hot.

How so, you might ask?

Well, we found that closing the curtains at night really trapped the heat in – despite the ceiling fan whirring around at warp factor 2 – and having them open helped draw the cooler outside air in.

No problem with that, except that a while back, the council replaced the streetlamp across the road with a really bright LED one.  Not a problem when the curtains are closed, but with them open, the light comes into the bedroom.

But, the angle that the light comes in through the window, means  that it doesn’t illuminate the whole bedroom.

Hell, it doesn’t even illuminate the bed.

No, a shaft of white light comes into the room and falls straight across my pillow.

Nowhere else in the room, just my pillow.

It’s impossible to get to sleep, with what feels like daylight on the other side of my closed eyelids.

Closing the curtains hasn’t been an option the past couple of days but a solution was found in the shape of Michael Palin’s Diaries 1969 to 1979 – an epic tome that is just the right size and weight to be able to stand on the windowsill and block out the light from the offending streetlamp.

Can’t do that with my fancy Kindle!