There were squadrons of parakeets scorching across Holland Park this evening.

In the five years since I first had them pointed out to me in Hyde Park, I've watched these green enamelled birds work their noisy way across West London; they've stormed the skies over Richmond and Chiswick, brazenly infiltrated Kensington and Notting Hill, and dominate the air above Holland Park.

They make London feel tropical, especially on warm, piercing blue sky days like the run we've having now.

Cheap and lazy, but I'll never let a cliche wriggle away from me; maybe this is a foretaste of a globally warmed London.