The searing sun scorched her eyeballs as she boarded the flight, before retiring to bequeath the stage to a comet more spectacular than Halley's. The lights faded as the plane soared off over the sea, towards winter.
Arriving an hour early, the plane was eventually permitted to land, whereupon it taxied around for more than half an hour in search of parking - rather like a suburban housewife outside a mall. Thirteen degrees, and the sun hadn't even risen. This was winter?
Catching her breath before her connecting flight, the Cow squinted out of the window of Gate 8, up into the jet-streak London sky, in search of the fearsome storms she'd heard about days earlier. The scoured blueness stared back. Like a knight in creaky armour outside a dragon's cave, the Cow waited nervously for the arrival of the dreaded UK winter. George Bush had a lot to answer for.
She glanced down at the umbrella in her hand. Perhaps it would have been of greater use to Gramsci, left behind in Cape Town...