It is official. The Sudanese winter is over.

How do I know that?

Because my shoulders are still pink and pulsing with the memory of the morning shower. 

It's a great pity because I have really been enjoying the mechanical switching on and off of the water heater each morning. First thing out of bed, I rush to the bathroom, flick the pleasant red switch and then stand there, singing to myself: tadaaa, beam of red is iniated. Rockets are ready to launch. Time to proceed to tea, news and email before leaping into the steaming waves of water that shall issue happily from my recently stolen shower head with a great big smile on my face. Ilhamdulilah. 

But this morning was not such a picture of happiness. Instead of turning on the hot tap, I might as well have jumped into a vat of chemical solvent and then stuffed myself with gravy. 

Anyone can tell you that laws of thermodynamics that usually pertain to bathrooms do not apply in Sudan. The hot tap produces cool water which has been stored in the mini tank in your bathroom, while the cold tap produces water that could be used in hospitals to singe off unsightly boils and cysts from peoples' necks and bottoms. If you foolishly turn on your heater, you basically heat water that has already been boiled: The kind of hot that even the most resilient Japanese and/or the immortal Ancient Greeks would whine and bitch about. 

Yes, it is rather depressing. Winter is over. Heat has returned to reign victorious. Good bye novelty of socks! Goodbye open car windows! Goodbye pleasure of waking up at 5, switching off the ceiling fan and then jumping back into bed to savour the last couple hours beneath the warm and cosy sheet.  

Still, I suppose I should dust off my stiff upper lip: the encroaching spring heat will no doubt compare favorably with the Scottish sky: Hey ho, what delights have been brought from the moon by golden storks with tails like peacocks? Oh majesty of white! Clouds, so clean and crisp they could be used as table cloths on the tops of Downing street... but they will soon to turn grey... and then to black... and then produce physical masses of cold that shock on arrival. Sun, bake me while you last... For I shall not complain.