The cottage is filled with butterflies. They aren’t sprightly things, cheerfully fluttering about, as in summer. No, these are lethargic. I open windows, and issue gentle nudges and hints, but they don’t want out.

It would appear they’ve crawled inside to die. They each find a corner to hide in, and they go very still, until they are as still as still can be. I guess they have a life span of one year, and they want to die in relative warmth and comfort.

It’s starting. The cold is slowly creeping in. It woke me up in the wee hours, so I added socks, a second top and a woolly hat, and went back to sleep. It’s a simple solution and there is no one to see how stupid it looks, which makes it a perfect solution in my book. Then I woke up all sweaty which was just like being in Thailand again, and this heaped on even more perfection.

Meanwhile on the news are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. They are coming in from the cold, to survive.

I am so very gratefully aware I am not in a tent with nothing but uncertainty surrounding me.