The end of the summer
A wet, windy Bank Holiday Monday and it feels like summer is over.
My husband and son are out windsurfing (they figured that the lashing rain couldn’t possibly make them any wetter), my daughter’s at the Notting Hill Carnival and I’m settling down with a new book – I Can’t Begin to Tell You by Elizabeth Buchan, to be precise.
I love the promise of the autumn but I’m sad that the summer of 2014 has been and gone. Actually, I reckon we’re a month ahead of ourselves. Scorching July felt like August and August feels positively autumnal. I’m wearing a coat as I type and if the chill carries on I’ll be back in my Brora fingerless gloves in double quick time.
But looking back, the summer has been a good one. My daughter graduated in style (followed by a celebratory lunch at Tramshed in Shoreditch), my son worked his socks off at a posh hotel overlooking Old Harry Rocks and my husband has started hang gliding again. I’ve grown used to him driving everywhere with a ladder on his car roof, with a slightly moth-eaten pink and blue hang glider strapped on top. Why on earth he wants to spend his spare time leaping off every hill in the district is a mystery but he’s never been happier.
I, on the other hand, have kept my feet determinedly on the ground, walking along the South West Coastal Path, seeing Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan in Skylight (I’m not surprised it’s set to transfer to New York next year – it’s brilliant) and writing, writing, writing…