I'm melllllll-tiiiiinnnnggg

Okay. It's 3pm in the afternoon and outside, it's 46.4 degrees. Celsius.

The wind is gusting at around 85 kilometres per hour, which means there's no point running out in a hat to try and fix up the bedsheets I pegged hastily over most of the plants in the garden this morning, because they will just fly off again.

If my camellia survives this onslaught, I'll be amazed. It's already burnt beyond recognition. And my orange jessamine hedge, the one I've been carefully babying for two years now, ever since the plants were six inches high? I think it's a goner.

The succulents I crowed about yesterday are probably being boiled alive in temperatures close to 70 degrees.

And - well, it's probably better not to speak about the herb garden at all. Rest in peace, herb garden.

The cats are all inside, stretched out much longer than you'd think possible. Podae's under the bed, Fathead is in the hallway, and the babypuss is hiding in the laundry.

In our sitting room, The Renovators and the Amateur Actress are flopped wordlessly on the sofa. My One True Love is spread out on the floor next to Dan the Pizza Man, and LÁuteur has retreated to the relative coolness of the front room.

The floorboards are hot under our feet. All the curtains are pulled shut and still the glass in the windows reflects radiant heat into the room. The air-conditioning doesn't make any difference.

And I'm just waiting - because I dread it like a Monday morning - for the terrible moment when the power goes out.