A wonderful day

Waking up with the windows open and a gentle breeze brings soft warm air into the bedroom bringing the twittering of the flock of sparrows which live in our overgrown garden, , the net curtains flapping lazily, the blinds shivering slightly and rattling softly, and the promise of another lovely summer’s day – that is the best!!

Summers I remember:

• the canoe summer when a friend had a canoe, a cousin came to visit, and we spent every day on the river
• the swimming pool summer when we spent every day and all day at the outdoor pool, sitting on the benches, chatting swimming, playing in the water, diving, eating ice-lollies, making friends
• the last Cambridge summer, when I did my exams, I cycled out into the countryside with friends and had picnics, leaving one school and a different future ahead, the countryside lush, green, and cool, the skies vivid blue, the sun hot but seen between the branches of trees we sat and lay beneath
• the Scandinavian summer when I went on a touring holiday with aunty, uncle and same cousin I’d shared the canoe summer with, travelling up from Germany where they lived, into Denmark, to Sweden, to Norway…
• the summer when I fell in love, when men landed on the moon, when I said farewell to the south and moved to the north
• dancing barefoot on a hot road which sizzled as summer rain fell, welcome, onto us as we celebrated finishing the first year of our degrees…
• the French summers, driving across France to Menton and spending weeks by the Mediterranean
• the American summer when I spent time with friends in Washington State, eating oysters, driving around, barbecues, meeting a friend of T.S.Eliot, making amazing new friends who wore cowboy hats every day
• the Irish summers, each year, rain or shine, grey skies or blue, when our little family went on holiday

… this is only a tiny selection!! i haven’t mentioned my early childhood summers, my most recent summers, but today, it’s warm, and bright, and pleasant… another lovely day.