The Nor’wester comes howling across from North Queensland, tears the water off the Tasman hurls it onto the Waikato then roars, dry as dragon’s breath and rough as red-hot sandpaper down from the central plateau to The East Cape scrape us raw and searing us red.

There is nothing you can do about it really, except make sure, when you cry, you are leaning over your most drought-prone plants.