Dear Friends

I am writing this in the middle of September, in a week that has brought blisteringly high temperatures to the south, pleasant late summer sun to the north-west, while torrential rain and storms around the country remind us that autumn is approaching.  The seasons seemed much less complicated when I was a child!  I suspect it wasn’t sunny every day of the summer, it just seems that way looking back.

Just as the weather can take us by surprise, we can be taken...