Dublin’s sunny spell is officially a drought. My plants, whom I have kept alive on our small rooftop through years of cold wet dark, are now dying in the hot dry sun. I fill the heavy, leaky green plastic watering can in the shower, and carry it, dripping, upstairs and out the back window to keep these green leaves, unaccustomed to actual summer sun, from drying, withering, dying. Twice a day, and still we’re down a hardy little shrub that’s been with us for years, and that creeper isn’t looking healthy either.

I’ve met more of my neighbours in this two week drought than in the two years previous. Sharing beers in plastic lawn chairs on the pavement by the street.