Sunday 14thJuly

The weather is peculiar, isn’t it.  A very late Spring has merged straight into Summer.  And everyone begins to feel better.  All those little problems seem to evaporate, much like the morning mist on the horizon.  The gardens are suddenly full of flowers, it must be a great time for all those pollinating insects, buzzing from one nectar filled flower to another.  But people generally feel happier too.

There are some of course who are complaining.   But let’s ignore those today, and just lift our faces up and enjoy it.   As a child you never thought about the weather.  If it rained a bit during the six week summer break, so it rained and you played indoors, but actually all my memories are of playing cowboys and injuns or explorers or tarzan out in the countryside.  I was lucky, I now realise in that our little council house backed onto farmland and fields and spinneys and lots of hedgerows and footpaths so it seemed perfectly natural for us all to just play out in the fields.  We also had a large green space right outside the front of our house which was the perfect size for football or cricket.  And even then we could play safely in the road, as we were practically a cul-de-sac with little or no traffic, certainly no lorries or fast cars.

But as a child you don’t appreciate it.  You think the sun will always shine.  And even as a young man I took the summers for granted; looking back the seventies seemed full of hot lazy summers.  So, maybe our appreciation of the weather has far more to do with our moods than the actual weather.  Whatever, at the moment I feel I just want to enjoy this one a bit more than many of late.  I may not have that many left.