Summer | An Author's View

I know I’ve been banging on about the weather we’ve been enjoying in the UK recently, but it really has been unusually gorgeous. Instead of doing the usual ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ thing of rushing outside en masse on the rare occasions the sun breaks through the rain clouds, and ending up with third degree sunburn in an effort to achieve something resembling a suntan, we’ve been treated to day after day of beautiful sunshine – with a slight blip over the weekend when the tail end of Hurricane Bertha hit our shores. Even my normally gleaming white legs have a bit of colour to them. Yes, we Brits are enjoying a proper summer for once, and I’m loving it.

On Saturday I attended a wedding reception. No surprise there; after all, we are in the height of the wedding season. Naturally I didn’t want to turn up empty handed, so headed into town on a baking hot day, appropriately clad in shorts, T shirt and flip flops, to buy a card for the happy couple.

So, to reiterate:

It’s the beginning of August
The weather is hot and sunny
It’s the wedding season.

Could I find the wedding cards in the card shop? Well, I did locate them after a couple of circuits of Clinton Cards, stashed away at the back of the shop to make way for – you’ve guessed it – Christmas cards.

Come December, when the weather’s cold and damp, it’s dark by 4pm, and hats, scarves, coats and boots are the clothes of choice, I’ll be dripping with Christmas cheer. To paraphrase Greg Lake, my eyes will be full of tinsel and fire. I love Christmas; it brightens up what would otherwise be the darkest, most dismal month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s fun.

In December.

Not in bloomin’ August in the middle of a heatwave!

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According to Word’s red squiggly lines, ‘randoms’ isn’t a word. Ppphhh! It is if I say it is. I’m a copy editor. Trust me.

Apparently, ppphhh isn’t a word either.

The Alison’s Editing Service office conversion is coming along…

…very…

…slowly.

I have now acquired a cushion for my hard chair to save my poor posterior from becoming too uncomfortably numb. Isn’t it pretty? The cushion, that is, not my rump!

The cushion I did intend to buy. What I didn’t intend was to return home the proud owner of a new lamp. I shouldn’t give in to impulse buys, but it’s so cute.

I’ve now convinced myself I did actually need a lamp. It helps me see the keyboard on my laptop. No, really, it does…

On my way home from my slightly indulgent shopping trip I noticed this graffiti on a Cambridge wall. Balancing my cushion and lamp between parked cars, I risked life and limb in the middle of the road to bring you this photo.

Priceless, isn’t it? If you’re old enough to remember pacman, that is.

Today has been beautiful in England: blue skies and blazing sunshine. We don’t get treated to many perfect summer’s days here, and it will probably provoke a ‘Phew, what a scorcher’ headline from the tabloid newspapers. Knowing how unpredictable the English weather can be, even in the middle of summer, I took an afternoon stroll over the meadows to make the most of it.

I popped into the local supermarket following a very pleasant walk in the sunshine, and happened to overhear the following conversation between a checkout assistant and a zombie usually seen pushing trolleys around the car park.

Zombie: ‘Hot enough for you?’

Checkout assistant: ‘At least you get to work outside and enjoy it.’

Zombie: ‘BRAINS!!!’

No, that’s not what the zombie said at all, because he wasn’t actually a zombie. Certain similarities, yes, but not a real zombie.

What he said was: ‘I hate it. It’s too hot for me. I’ll be glad when it cools down again…’

As I’m sure it will very soon. Good God, no wonder the Aussies call us ‘Whinging Poms’!