It's 10:33pm, 4 degrees Centigrade and the first thundershower of Spring has finally rolled into town. While Winter was mild this year, it is always long and substitutes silent dumpings of snow with which to contend rather a proper raucous rainstorm. I'm out on the verandah, sitting in darkness with a blanket on my lap, nose and ears nipped at by the chill night air, reading some Poe. Can there be a better soundtrack or theatre for Poe than the plump raindrops bursting all around, the gorged creek babbling, the house foundation shuddering, the blasts of light to remind me there is a real World, with real power, behind the reality we've devised?