Why I can't wait for Winter to arrive
It’s midsummer in the UK – 4am. My bedroom faces east. The light filters through the curtains, brightening the room, urging me to wake up. I took down the black out ones, wanting to work with natures hours, move with the seasons, relish everything each had to offer. Now I find summer is by far the least pleasurable.
I haven’t yet opened my eyes. The birds have begun their song, the chaffinch, the starlings – I can drift off to sleep again to their conversations, but not when it’s two crows bickering on the roof top – CAW, CAW, CAW and back again CAW CAW! They go on for a good ten minutes until they resolve their differences and fly away.
A fly enters the room. BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZING … pause. It goes quiet, has it left or just settled? No more feeling divinely warm and cosy under the covers; when I wake my internal body boiler ignites and I just feel uncomfortably hot and sticky. The insect bites around my ankles have also woken up – I scratch and scratch – scratching till I can bear them no longer and decide to get up.
The traffic begins at 6am, there is only one exit to this settlement and I live on the main thoroughfare – I’m used to the constant sound of cars passing but today is Sunday and I should be able to enjoy a day’s respite. The lawnmowers begin early – WHRRRRRR, the families packing their vehicles with towels, toys and children for a day by the coast.
Before the house stirs I enjoy a quiet routine. I Sip my tea, select my music, and I enter into an undisturbed meditation. But not today, its midsummer. Our neighbour on the right has bought a jacuzzi, and at 10am it sparks into action – it HUMMMMS and WOOSHES for a good half hour. The neighbour on the left is having difficulty persuading the XXL black labrador to exit the children’s trampoline. They call his name several times – ‘BAILEY come down from there! BAILEY GET OFF- bad boy! BAILEY – wassthis – good boy, come get your ball’. They try threats and bribes but he’s not persuaded. Meanwhile, the coaxing continues… loudly, ‘BAILEY!’
Then there’s the ants. Black ants, flying ants, red ants - ants everywhere. I thought I had made my peace with bugs. I have allowed them to roam the garden, make their homes and multiply to the detriment of everything I plant – but now they have invaded my home. Not just ants, soon it will be the time of the moths. The caterpillars that have devoured almost every box hedge in the country (including mine) will soon pupate and emerge as moths. There were several of them last year - this year judging by how much they have gobbled, I imagine there will be swarms. And I guarantee they will find my kitchen.
Summer brings more work. I can and I do enjoy the garden flowers as they bloom upwards, the shrubs that expand sideways and the swelling vegetables – those that survive. One day’s worth of warm weather costs an hour’s labour in watering. I can’t bring myself to use a hosepipe, I inherited a water meter when I moved in so everything is fed by a faithful watering can. Did I mention the unknowns – the shoots I didn’t plant, but turned up anyway? The plants that were allowed to grow to satisfy my curiosity and have now invaded every spare square inch that enjoys a modicum of sunlight.
The peace that is restored early afternoon is disturbed once again by the ice cream van. Greensleeves is played and paused for at least an hour every day around 4pm when the children are certain to be home from school. This is a small compact community – whichever street he is in I hear it. It begins in April and concludes end of September following British Summertime or maybe we should call it British Ice-Cream-time.
Tough if you live here and are a vegetarian (lucky for me I’m not) - the smell of charred chicken and seared sausages wafts downwind, there’s no escaping someone’s barbecued offering. These are the events that are often accompanied by loud music and incessant chatter… BOOM, BOOM, BOOM chatter, chatter chatter …. going on and on till sundown. Sundown , that means 10pm.
Sure I look forward to summer like everyone else. I look forward to discovering nature that is new to me. This year I celebrate the celery leaved buttercup and Sanfoin – two species of wildflower I had never seen before. I never cease to be enchanted by the swallows that swoop and dive, the call of the yellowhammer in the fields, the promise of fruit on the brambles, the sway of wild grasses in the breeze…….
A…. A…..ACHOOOOO – did I mention hay fever? I can’t wait for Winter to arrive.