Dear reader,
I’m here with a big proclamation and possibly one with controversy - summer is the best season.
The weather in London is a well-known pariah for those who’ve experienced it at its worst. But while Winter London can have its dark and dreary tantrums, London in the summer is a whole new person.... she’s joyful, she’s vibrant, she’s the very definition of excitement. The city balloons and surges with an electric energy, one that is completely absent in the depths of winter. We’ve finally hit warm weather and it’s fucking glorious.
I know summer is here when I wake up to baby blue skies, not a cloud in sight. When the weather app isn’t my top three apps opened every day. When jeans and jumpers are swapped for pastel dresses and frilly white tops. When I wake up at 5am and I don’t care that it’s 5am, I’m ready to go and seize the day despite everyone else still being asleep.
I was heading home from work late one Wednesday and right by Tower Bridge was a gathering of people spread out on the little greenery. The ice cream truck had a queue, people laid in the grass with sunglasses perched on their noses, there was even a cocktail pop-up truck. I’m usually in a mad rush to get to London Bridge station to catch the next train home, but this time, I physically stopped to take it all in.
I have to admit - I wait all year for summer (which makes me wonder why I live in the UK since it’s cold and wet for about 70% of the year). It’s really the only few months where I feel an endless joy and passion for doing things as mundane as food shopping or mowing the grass. In the depths of winter with its dark clouds, puddles of muddy water and crowds of umbrellas, you want to stay inside (you’re sort of forced inside, really) but with summer…I think of the feel of grass between my toes, the open windows and doors, the sun rising early and setting late, the warmth I feel on my face, and the litres of iced coffee coursing through my veins (water? Never heard of her).
And sure, summer comes with baggage - the wasps that eat my patio furniture, the thigh chafing I get for trying to squeeze into shorts too small, the sweaty bodies you’re thrusted up against on the rickety tube and the squinty eye photos taken because everything is so goddamn bright - but these are all tiny problems compared to the pitfalls of every other season.
Summer is the time of year when I excessively over subscribe to event and online city guides just to make sure I’m well-informed about all the things the city has to offer, even though I know that I won’t be able to get to about 98% of them anyways.
But summer does something else to me as well, it unravels a sense of urgency and desperation. It’s supposed to be a time for you to relax in the sun, but instead I feel a guilt that slowly and quietly gnaws at me when I sleep in (and when I sleep in it’s never past 9am) and when I lay on the couch in the afternoon on Sunday, there’s a sense of the day being let go when it could be spent outdoors doing something productive. I’m inundated with emails (which I’ve subscribed to myself) to “seize the weekend!” and “make the most of this summer’s deals!” and to top it off, with bottomless brunches, frisbee in the park, piles of books to be read, barbecues with friends, it seems a waste to just sit indoors and fold laundry. It’s like saying “no, thanks” to a great day - a day that could be utterly spectacular, life-changing (it rarely ever is) but I wouldn’t know because I chose lie in instead.
I spent 13 years of my life living on the equator in Singapore soaking up 31°C of pure sunshine and humidity. Let me tell you - If you have sunshine every single day you will start to lose track of time and you’ll develop an inability to recall when events happened because everyday feels like groundhog day: it’s either hot, sweaty and humid or rainy, sweaty and humid. You won’t treasure the good weather when you have it.
That’s one of the things I liked about the UK. The seasons are pillars that help break up the rest of the year; you have transition periods from boots to sandals, jeans for dresses, hot drinks for icy beverages.
You develop an appreciation for the summer months because you’re forced to make the most of the good days knowing they won’t last forever. John Steinbeck said it best:
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”