If you looked out of the window on Friday, according to legend, you would have been looking at the weather we will be having for the next 40 days and nights. That’s because July 15 is St Swithun’s Day. The weather up till then included a lot of rain – much needed after the recent heatwave and dry period – but then a mix of sun and clouds greeted the day itself. I’ll settle for that.

While the legend is just that – and there is no record of unbroken rainfall over such a period – the Royal Meteorological Society argues that it is not without some logic because the Jet Stream, which greatly affects our weather, tends to settle into a regular pattern around the middle of July, which can last for some weeks.

The middle of July also used to be the time when auctioneers would pack up for the summer, taking advantage of family holidays, while attention is focused elsewhere, to give the gavel and cataloguing a rest with a view to recharging the batteries for late August in preparation for the autumn season of sales.

I like a break as much as the next man, but more recently I have found that maintaining a sales programme throughout the summer keeps the rhythm going and, rather like the Jet Stream, adds to the consistency of service for the rest of the year.

On July 4 I had the honour of conducting the auction of Haslemere Hogs – highly decorated sculptures of pigs that had been dotted around the town centre for three months – in aid of the mayor’s charities. Along with a selection of other lots, we raised £16,000 for good causes, as well as a tidy sum for Stepping Stones, the remarkable special needs school where the auction and reception took place, sited at Undershaw, once home to that master of detective fiction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

When I say that Stepping Stones is remarkable, I mean that in more ways than one.

It’s been going for more than a decade now and provides for youngsters between 7 and 18 whose acute or chronic medical conditions, mental and emotional health issues prevent them from enjoying the sort of day-to-day schooling the rest of us take for granted. Stepping Stones is a triumph in navigating a course midway between mainstream schooling and more commonly found special school curricula and, in doing so, maximises opportunity for its students both at the school and after they leave.

Its newly constricted modern building is a metaphor for this process of finding the successful middle way, sitting in the hollow beneath the Hindhead junction alongside and linked to the original house built by Conan Doyle. Somehow, the ultra modern design works with the traditional architecture – and the new build literally saved the old house in the process.

As I write this they will be rolling back the covers and counting out the strawberries for Wimbledon, which celebrates its 140th anniversary this year. All British hopes will be on Andy Murray once more, although his sore hip and recent variable form – as well as a rejuvenated Federer and Nadal – means that we face one of the widest open fields for the championships in years.

Every time I watch Wimbledon and see players sign autographs and hand out their towels post match, I wonder how much these treasured collectables might be worth in years to come at auction. To be honest, most are so common that it will take an age for them to command any sort of decent price, but occasionally a fan strikes lucky, as when 19-year-old Murray Whitelaw caught Andy Murray’s prize-winning racquet when he tossed it into the crowd after Team GB won the Davis Cup in December 2015. The initial valuation of the racquet at the time was £10,000 – and Murray (the fan) sealed its provenance with media coverage, including a photo of himself with the tennis star.

Whitelaw vowed that the racquet would never be for sale and that he intended to have it framed. Good for him. I should imagine that with Andy’s 2016 Wimbledon win, World number one status and various other trophies added since, that racquet would be worth a fair bit more by now.