High Summer

A thick golden haze over the valley just now, a dusty light, long shadows.  We are having an official heatwave and it has been warm and thundery for some days now.   Things rumble on below my radar that define the summer.  Wimbledon, its London intensity of greenery and white flannels and packed roads mixed with the country house picnic of Pimms and strawberries.  (Summer cities I will return to.)  And Glastonbury, the modern, cynical, commercial version of a 1960s festival, suddenly become a trendy thing to do, all photo-ID tickets and fashionable wellies.  

And then we heard voices in the field and two lost holidaymakers came over the fence.  They are staying in a local farmhouse, a 400 year old holiday property, and were heading into the village.  Their brochure described this as a 'hamlet' which I suppose it is.  And I forget that, from Easter, people take holidays - well, they do all year round but Easter-October is still the official holiday season - and that many people we see are on holiday.  The pub isn't open on a Monday and there is nothing else to do; but it is a beautiful, warm soft evening to do nothing in.