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.