Hello, September

September is my favorite month, and not just because of this. About a year ago, I was out for a bicycle ride and struck up a conversation with a fellow cyclist about, as happens here, the weather. I commented on how much I was enjoying the weather. He said, "You're lucky. Usually it's ----ing rain now."

At that point it occurred to me what one cabbie and several people who have lived in San Francisco have said about September in their city: They call it the "secret summer," the month it's most likely to be warm and dry. Perhaps my cyclist friend was wrong, and that in a northern, temperate, marine-influenced climate like London's September is the finest month.

I could go back and link back to all my carping about the rainy, cold summer we've suffered through, but that would be even more tiresome the second time. Suffice it to say, September has been a fine month in London, and I won't even complain about the fact that our boiler kicked on overnight last night and that I had to turn it back on midday because the temperature plummeted when the sun swung overhead ....