The nuclear winter is over. Yesterday we emerged, blinking and pale as though we’d been indoors for a thousand months, and were greeted with a cloudless blue sky and glorious sunshine. For the first time since we moved to the south coast five months ago our daily constitutional walk was less constitutional and more playful: we shed our coats which had begun to feel like a second skin, we felt the warmth of the sun on our arms, we threw stones into the sea and ate ice lollies.

The sun went straight to our heads. And we weren’t the only ones. Beach hut doors were thrown open, barbecues were lit, old ladies, also blinking and pale, were wheeled onto the promenade to sniff at the sea air and students played guitars on the beach.

A queue snaked out from the ice cream kiosk while women who really shouldn’t wear hot pants and men who really oughtn’t go shirtless did just that. Children, like BB (pictured), and dogs leapt around on the pebbles, giddy with the sense of excitement they’d caught from the adults.

Tuesday often tops surveys as the worst day of the working week, but yesterday it was the best.

I just hope that wasn’t ‘it’ for another year…