This is the time of the year when summer can begin to breeze in during the nights – they stay warmer a little longer each day, sometimes actually heating up a few degrees before it’s morning again. A happy reversal of atmospheric fortune, it’s the queasy opposite of what usually happens at night, and in the early days of the season I always thrill at it. (Check back for over-heated-bitterness come August.)
In the sticky early sweetness of summer’s approach, when the humidity is on the rise and the day leans long, a dip in the pool provides relief and release. ‘Tis the celebrated season of the speedo, and the northern hemisphere bulges with all the promise contained therein.
We’ve been having a rather rocky journey from spring to summer this year – a roller coaster of highs and lows that has not been conducive to the various seedlings I have been trying to grow in patio pots. This was an inauspicious year to do seedlings – so of course that’s what I did before knowing what it was going to be like. They sprouted later than anticipated thanks to the colder stretches of weather, then spurted rather too quickly when the heat hit for a few days, and now have been looking gangly and weak, thanks to the wet and cool soil that has them on the verge of rot. A lesson learned for next year: forget the seed thing and go with plants already off to a start from the nursery.
As for the speedo that may have brought you to this post, this one doesn’t quite fit me anymore, so I decided to give it the old Viking funeral (just kidding, Andy – I did not light this on fire in the pool – those days are done). I ended up just swimming without the suit because that’s the almost-summer mood we’re in right now…
