Yes, the rains have come – and with quite a bang. The electrical storms this week have been spectacular. Not the lazy flash-grumble-mumble that you get in the UK, but a window-rattling ZAP! BOOM! KAPOW! And instead of constant soul-sucking drizzle, when Cyprus decides it’s time to rain, it does it in style and it doesn’t hang about. I love it! It’s so exciting, so energising.

The usual serenity of my Pilates class was charged with a frisson of excitement as claps of thunder made us lose track of our breathing. Afterwards, Matt and I sat outside on the veranda to enjoy the drama of the storm. The wind was doing an insane dance, but it was warm, not like the freezing blasts in the UK. And it felt cosy being under the veranda, just out of reach of the rain.

I haven’t seen rain in months, and when it came I surprised myself – I felt relief. I stepped outside and breathed in the familiar smell of wet earth and tarmac, and I felt a fondness for it. This is the smell of England. Drizzly England with its constant grey skies. I loathed the dampness and half-light of the UK. I resented it. It made me so cross and lethargic and miserable. I’d wish for blue skies and warmth to walk around bare-footed. To be able to sit in my garden without a cardie and without having to dry the garden furniture first.

My wish came true.

The blue skies, warmth and sunlight of Cyprus makes me feel happy and alive. Panic sets in when I remember that one day I will have to go back to all that grey – and time is going so fast. But there were weeks this summer when the heat was relentless and I learned that there can be too much of a good thing. I also learned that I needed to respect the heat, that it could (and did) make me ill when I pushed things too far. I learned that too much sun can also make me lethargic and cross, just like when I had too little in the UK. Too much sun sends me running indoors, just like the cold. My garden looks parched and I miss the colour green. It’s great that the heat killed off the weeds, but even the big trees now have wilted leaves and the little lemon tree in the front garden is struggling. ‘Just hold on a bit longer,’ I kept thinking.

And now the rains have come and the seasons have changed. My first autumn in Cyprus. I try to shake off that familiar feeling of dread that I get every autumn in the UK when I think of how I won’t see a warm summer’s day for another 7 months. Then I remind myself that this is Cyprus, the winters are shorter and milder. And it’s nearly November and I’m still wearing shorts.