Life in England

…strange light in the sky?

It will not have escaped the notice of the gentle reader that we have been enjoying of late – both here in the UK and, as far as I can make out, also in BC – that nigh-on forgotten of the seasons – a summer! This has – I am sure – come as a most pleasant surprise to all concerned.

Even when the temperatures have not been scorching their way into the 30s Celsius – and thus, as far as we Brits are concerned, into ‘heatwave’ territory – they have hovered really most pleasantly in the mid-20s C. Yet more – such rainfall as we have seen has by and large graced us during the nights – and the skies have featured an abundance of hues azurian in place of their more accustomed fifty shades of leaden.

This is all – frankly – very lovely. The ragtop owners are out in force, topping up their farmers’ tans and reveling in the unaccustomed sensation of the warm, dry wind rippling though their hair. The inns and taverns – such as remain after the recent creeping contagion of conversions to Thai restaurants and the like – are empty! This is, however, only because everyone is outside – the beer gardens and riverside terraces groaning with merrymakers late into the nights.

One thing only troubles me…

If you are a regular follower of these idle musings (what do you mean? – of course you are!) you will doubtless have noticed that I have from time to time posted images of our really rather beautiful gardens. I feel safe here from any accusations of braggadocio because their loveliness has absolutely nothing to do with me. We rent the apartment: the communal gardens being maintained by landscape gardeners at the expense of the owners. Mind you – we do contribute to the upkeep of the gardens at our own apartment in  Buckinghamshire – which are now enjoyed equally by our tenants.

The splendour of these gardens is in large measure the result of the slightly unusual history of the house itself. The building that used to stand on the site was a rather splendid Victorian mansion – set in the middle of mature gardens. As is often the way of such things the house was sold at some point post-war and ended up in the hands of a commercial organisation for a while before  being left empty. Eventually there was a fire, which damaged the buildings to the extent that they had to be demolished.

The developer who purchased the site submitted several planning applications – one after the other – with a view to building apartments. Each application was rejected in turn. Bewildered, he finally he asked the planning officials what they would approve. They pointed him at a picture of the original edifice. As a result we live in a contemporary recreation of a Victorian mansion, surrounded in the mature and magnificent gardens of the original.

I digress! Necessarily – but none-the-less…

The thing that troubles me is that although we love these gardens we don’t actually go and sit in them very much. We don’t take our lunch outside – we don’t picnic under the shade of the oaks. Earlier this year – as soon as the weather turned clement – the Kickass Canada Girl and I rushed out and purchased ourselves a zero-gravity recliner – to avail ourselves of this wonderful facility on our doorstep. It sits – as yet unused – in our hallway!

Now, this is really quite embarrassing. It could be that – because we live in a first floor apartment – the separation between us and the outside world makes things just that little bit too fiddly. We throw open the windows and lean out – enjoying the views and the sun’s rays on our faces – but we don’t go to the trouble of taking everything downstairs and locking the door behind us. Perhaps the fact that it is a communal garden also puts us off a little.

What worries me is that the truth may be that – because we have had to do without one for so long – we have forgotten how to do summer properly! Now, that would be a tragedy!

The weather in the UK has been determinedly following its recent topsy-turvey course – routinely confounding expectations and continuing to be predicatably unpredictable. Last year’s dryest winter in aeons was followed rapidly by one of the wettest summers on record. This year’s arctic spring and early summer has finally given way to… yes – you’ve guessed it – a heatwave unsurpassed for more than a decade. Well – this seems to me to have provided us now with pretty much the full set!

With temperatures edging into the 30s Celsius for the last few weeks or so and with humidity high the working weekdays have been tough on those of us who have to commute, as well as for those who must work in the metropolitan connurbations. The evenings have brought little relief with the thermometer remaining stubbornly high, causing restless nights and tired and cranky mornings. Weekends – which one might expect to be a riot of joyous summer activities – see some of us at least simply trying to catch up with sleep and relaxation before we start on another hot and humid stretch at work. Those of us for whom school terms have finished can at least go to work in shorts and sandals. For this relief…

We are – gripes not withstanding – immensely grateful that after a considerable number of years of doing without we have finally been gifted a proper summer. We would – however – not be truly British were we not to complain about it. A treasured memory from my youth – in a year in which the customary hard winter was followed by a deeply disappointing spring… when the sun eventually came out for a period – and after a mere three days of pleasantly clement weather – the tabloid headline that shrieked in two inch high letters:

“73 degrees – No relief in sight!”

That’s Farenheit of course – not quite 23 degrees C!

Got to love those Brits!