While sailing down the river on a lazy summer day.

I’ve always had a thing about a lazy summer day. And growing up in Scotland there weren’t that many. Well a few, but it always seemed a more English thing, maybe as the weather, certainly in the south-east of England is often so much warmer. Or maybe it’s cultural? Cricket, Pimms on the lawn etc. There is a scene in a classic film called Accident from 1967, involving punting in Oxford in high summer. Dirk Bogarde, an Oxford Don and his top student played by Michael York are both in love with a young Woman played by an actress whose name escapes me. Young, beautiful and French, that I remember. And the scene though I’ve not seen it in twenty years sums up that lazy summer day feeling. If you tried punting in Glasgow, when I was growing up, at least, you’d probably have the punt stolen or smashed up. Check out Accident incidentally, top class cinema, though perhaps a little slow paced for the Millennials and fans of The Fast and the Furious.               

So, tough as it is to say, we’re more than halfway through another summer but at least it feels like summer at this stage. A glorious one too. A month ago, things weren’t looking too auspicious, but a change occurred with that brief and intense heatwave at the end of June. Since then, it’s been mostly delightful, rarely hot, in fact until today, never hot, but a lovely gentle summer. This week the heat has returned with a vengeance. London in a heatwave is tough but so far July has been just perfect. I prefer it that way, to start off slowly and build. Last year was the opposite; a magnificent May, June and July but August wasn’t up to much.

                Things are quiet in the garden by late July. Buzzing from bees and hoverflies, if you get close. The odd bird calling, a robin or a blue tit but not many. You may have noticed the chattering of young birds until recently, pestering their parents, but that’s gone now too. So, the main sound is one of my favourites at this time of year, the swifts, with their unique screech. Well my favourite, now that the birdsong has stopped. Those magnificent athletes of the air. This morning I saw a ‘scream’ of twelve effortlessly cutting across the rooftops, like a Red Arrow display. My first memory of swifts dates back to 1987 in Italy. We stayed at a campsite where I dare say there weren’t many birds as some terrible lugubrious sounding machine came by every night spraying the trees to kill off mosquitoes and undoubtedly killed all the other insects too. No, it was on a visit to the local city, one evening, where I had I my first ever pizza in Italy, as an aside. It was an evening of firsts. As we walked through the streets I looked up and there they were, cutting majestically between the old buildings against the backdrop of the blue Mediterranean sky. It was, in actual fact, an Alpine Swift, a slightly larger version of the one that comes to Britain. Truly remarkable birds, to have them here is a real privilege and a pleasure. They do pretty much everything on the wing, yes everything and they can fly at more than 100mph.
               Just as the dawn chorus in May signals the start of summer proper, the swifts are the sound of midsummer and lazy days in the city. They need old buildings to nest in and Muswell Hill has that. Vauxhall which more resembles Singapore these days is less likely to have them. They are also a barometer of the cleanliness of the air as they eat insects by the thousand. I can hear them as I type. I look up to the sky and see them sometimes high and dry, sometimes close enough almost to touch as they speed past. If you have them in your vicinity, enjoy them, they’ll be off to Africa soon enough.

                The other main garden pleasure, at the moment, with the lovely weather is, of course, the flowers and the insects that feed on them. The colour and perfume from the roses, the scabious, the buddleia, the lavender, the delightful pink Doris, the lobelias and others is a literal feast for the senses. And the insects; honeybees, bumble bees of various types, hoverflies, the odd solitary bee and wasp though not as many as I’d hoped and some welcome butterflies too. Cabbage white, red admiral and fritillary have visited. On the lawn, buttercups have given way to clovers. Another memory of childhood, the clover and popular with the bees. If you have some don’t mow them all away. With the coming heatwave this week, the highlight, swifts and amazing colours aside, will be sitting outside, around dusk, with the continental heat having peaked a little earlier, the perfume at its most intense, the air still and maybe a glass of red wine. A heady concoction. Am if I’m lucky I may even see a bat. Another magical experience. Hedonism doesn’t have to be bad for you, this is good karma hedonism.

Another one over. See you next year Wimbledon.

Over five hours of tennis. Epic, grandiose, nail-biting to the end. Federer should really have won. He could perhaps even have won in three straight sets. But he didn’t. He probably let Djokovic off the hook. No disrespect to Djokovic. He’s a truly great player, but the majority of beautiful tennis, of excitement, thrills and variety came from Federer. Djokovic seemed quite flat at times. All the more credit to him for maintaining his focus but Federer had more chances. In their previous two finals at Wimbledon it felt inevitable that Novak would win. Not yesterday. That will make it hurt doubly for Federer. Next year he’ll be thirty-eight. Logic dictates that yesterday’s final was his last though with Federer logic is at times wasted. Some of the tennis he played yesterday defied logic. Sublime drop shots, exceptional half volleys at his toes, backhands winners down the line. The line is, he makes it looks easy. Which it isn’t. That is his genius. Djokovic, at times, doesn’t make it look easy. But his defence is the greatest in tennis history. That is his genius. You think he is in trouble, but he still comes away with the point.  Federer’s game fits grass court tennis like a glove. Djokovic, at times, looks like a flailing octopus in comparison. Yet he won. Aesthetics win you fans but they don’t always win you tennis matches. Still I feel for Federer and felt very sad. Novak is thirty-two and will have more chances. Federer may not. But his tennis this year will stay with me for a long time. He was also part of the two greatest matches on the men’s side. The other being the semi -final against Nadal. Not quite an epic, but still four sets of thrills and spills by the men’s game’s two greatest rivals and greatest stars.

Finals often disappoint, in other sports too and this one started off quite subdued. But momentum gradually built, and it finished up the longest men’s final ever, if perhaps not quite as dramatic as in 1980 between Mcenroe and Bjorg, 2008 between Federer and Nadal and of course, Andy Murray vs. Novak in 2013.The women’s final, by comparison, lasted one hour and was fairly drab by comparison. The winner Simona Halep will receive the same amount of money as Djokovic for spending a fifth of the amount of time on court. Sometimes the quest for equality fails to deliver justice. Surely true equality would oblige the women to play the best of five sets too?  

Another highlight was Andy Murray’s return to the doubles arena. Men’s and mixed with Serena Williams. It was tremendous seeing them play together and enjoying themselves too. Not that they weren’t competitive, but they were relaxed. A rare treat for them and the spectators. Murray, it seems, still has a part to play, which is wonderful, a player of true class. Serena Williams, like Federer, thirty-seven, impressively again made it to the singles final. Not that long ago she almost died during childbirth. She is an astonishing player and presence; a force of nature. Dan Evans, the English player who was banned for a year for using cocaine acquitted himself very well and is a very entertaining tennis player, with an old school game suited to the fast grass. His 5 - set loss to Sousa, the Portuguese – a far higher ranked player - was one of the matches of the tournament. Full of suspense and excitement. If he had won and he had chances, he would have met Nadal. What a thrill that would have been. He probably doesn’t have the weapons to trouble the big guns, but he plays with skill, adventure and enthusiasm and will hopefully have a successful year.

A couple of other points. In the sixties and early seventies, Australia was one of the dominant countries in tennis, both for men and women; Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Tony Roach, Ken Rosewall, Margaret Court and Yvonne Goolagong amongst others. In the eighties we had Pat Cash, in the nineties, Pat Rafter both sublime serve volleyers and grand slam champions and also Leighton Hewitt. Less flamboyant, more pragmatic, but a world number one. This year, granted, Ashleigh Barty won the ladies French Open, a fine achievement, but on the men’s side who do we have? Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrgios. Both have talent, Kyrgios, in particular, is spectacular at times, but their attitude of belligerence and disinterest and Kyrgios’ swearing and spitting on court – making his mate Andy Murray, almost saint-like in comparison – are tiresome and depressing. Still, it’s their life and it is only tennis, but the sport needs to maintain some dignity in a world currently so lacking and they have failed to respect that, unfortunately. But as Jean Renoir, the great French film Director, said, in his film, ‘The rules of the game’, “chacun a ses raisons”, i.e.  “everyone has their reasons”. I’m not judging them but as a tennis fan it is my right to criticize.

Wimbledon, like Christmas come around once a year and disappears too quickly. A metaphor for life, I suppose. I miss it already.

Garden notes with some Wimbledon chat thrown in...

"At Christmas, I no more desire a rose, than wish a snow in May's new fangled birth; But like of each thing that in season grows." William Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost.

July already. Half-way point of the year. How are your gardens coming along? It won’t get much better than this so enjoy the colours. Summer, seems to have finally arrived. Pleasantly warm, blue skies, light winds. After the coldest and wettest June that I can remember in all my time in London, things have calmed down. And following the incongruity of last weekend’s brief Mediterranean heat, the ‘Spanish Plume’, plume not plum, as they call it - essentially hot air travelling up from Africa across the Iberian Peninsula towards us - things have developed into a classic English summer. That intense level of heat of last Saturday just feels odd. You should be in a place with palm trees and ice cold cerveza and calamari when it’s thirty-three degrees. Now it’s looking good for quite a while AND it’s the first week of Wimbledon too. Lovely weather and Wimbledon without rain. England at its best. Don’t read the newspapers or watch the politicians. That’s England at its worst. Watch tennis. And good news, it’s not been snatched by Sky Sports yet either.

         Is Wimbledon the greatest tournament of all? I’d say so, but I loathe comparison and everything or almost everything in life is subjective. Is it just jingoism? Nostalgia? Perhaps, but not quite. There is something about the grass, the gentility, the history, the atmosphere, the uniqueness. A cushion to protect those of us lucky enough to love the game from the harsher realities of the world. Or at least forget them temporarily. But tennis is more than that. We can learn from it. Wimbledon is a place where beauty, dignity and respect thrive, one or two Australian louts aside. Neither beauty nor dignity nor respect are priorities of politicians or the capitalist machine.  Now the French open, also a great tournament, is played on clay. Clay will never have the romance of grass. That’s just aesthetics, it’s a natural reaction of the senses. If you go to Paris and go to one of the beautiful parks, on closer inspection, the white gravel leaves you a bit cold. And they don’t let you sit on the grass. A double whammy. The French are better than us at many things, including tennis – Andy Murray aside - but regarding public parks, perhaps they can cede defeat. Regents Park, Hampstead Heath, Richmond Park and all the other beautiful parks up and down the country are testimony to that. And an English garden does, after all, have a certain renown and reputation.

         So back to the garden. The French lavender, after a strong April and May is suffering, losing most of its colour and the bees with it. Perhaps the cold and wet of June did for it. And I have noticed waking around the neighbourhood that English lavender is currently thriving. A beautiful purple/blue colour with intense perfume. Perhaps that’s my comeuppance for being too pro-European. An interesting development has been the white lavender. This is the wonder of a garden. It was planted last year but I don’t remember it being white before. In retrospect, I think it didn’t flower. The scabious is thriving, loved by bees as is the buddleia, a late bloomer and always welcome. On the lawn, some buttercups have sprung up. What a thrill to see those yellow flowers. The simple act of visual recognition does something to the brain and takes you back through time to childhood innocence and enthusiasm. Well, I was mostly innocent. The other marvel is the thyme pot. A pot belonging to my absent friend Daniel Kirkpatrick who cooked with it when he was still with us. The mass of colours would have pleased him. And the roses are currently budding again after their first flowering. There is literally one rose flower in bloom today (from three plants). A single solitary and most beautiful English Miss, yes that’s the name; English Miss. Delightful name, delightful colour and perfume. And perhaps just one is apt. Two English Misses could be considered indecent.

         Birdlife is relatively quiet. Swifts screeching across the sky, like something from Star Wars, herald summer at its peak. Still city birds, unlike swallows for example, they nest in holes they find in these old Victorian houses. The odd blackcap, a summer visitor, the odd wren, so tiny. Blue and great tits. Goldfinches, so gregarious and beautiful. A dunnock, the bird which proves that still waters run deep. Drab and brown they hop about looking for seeds. But they enjoy rather exciting love lives. Polygamous, essentially the swingers of the bird world. The ubiquitous robin and blackbird. Blackbirds are rather taken for a granted, I think. Their melodious song is one of the symbols of spring and summer and the male is really rather beautiful. Jet black plumage contrasting with orange eyes and beak. Sadly, no summer visitors such as warblers yet, but there is time for that. Plenty of unidentifiable insects flying about. A large green cricket on the wall. Little centipedes fleeing the light when uncovered by moving plant pots. An unusual wasp with long antennae. A harvestman which I don't think I've seen since I was a kid. No it's not a cheap pub chain. It's related to spiders. A round body and giant long legs. The odd mammoth bumble bee and some solitary wasps and bees. Small. Tiny in fact and colourful. They’re useful pollinators and unlike social wasps and bees, the fear of a sting, which we seem to have ingrained in us, is an irrelevance. Hoverflies too, using wasp mimickery to trick potential predators - are again harmless and identifiable, by their hovering, naturally enough. All these insects are what you want you to see in your garden. One other more unusual sight last Saturday evening was a hummingbird hawkmoth. Very striking, it is basically, a large striped moth that feeds like a hummingbird i.e. hovering in front of plants to suck their nectar with a long proboscis. And it is predominantly Mediterranean. We saw one whilst walking past a garden. Almost certainly it hitched a ride on the Spanish plume across the English Channel, ended up in North London and presumably returned again as the weather cooled. They surely couldn’t survive a normal summer here. An astonishing thing is nature. Now back to the tennis.