My partner is British. Before I ever considered moving to England, I visited at least a dozen times. Not weekend trips — real visits. I stayed with family. I walked the streets in every season. I sat in the pubs and the parks and the supermarket queues. I thought I understood what life here would look like. I was completely wrong.

I say that with full affection, because I have now lived through enough British summers — and British heatwaves — to understand that the way this country responds to extreme heat is one of the most purely British things I have ever encountered. It is simultaneously catastrophic and deeply, deeply funny.