I have always thought of weather like that of the last week as Dating Weather.  It’s not that one can only date when it’s hot, or that one is more amorous in heat than cold (if anything, the reverse is true); but when I was young and single I was very poor. As George Orwell observed in Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), in a line so good Nancy Mitford stole it, ‘It is not easy to make love in a cold climate when you have no money,’.  Dates in the winter necessitate a restaurant or a cinema or, at the very least, somewhere with heating – and that costs money. Dating in the summer is a walk in the park. 

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And now I am old and single, I am cash-poor – at least until the matrimonial acquest is sold.  (My ex-wife’s estate agent claims that a sunny spell is House-Buying Weather, but I haven’t seen any evidence yet.) And so I am back to dating. For three months of the year, which is as long as you can expect Dating Weather in a cold climate. I attempted a first date picnic in Hyde Park in September some........

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