Lazy Days

There is a perceived, perhaps a remembered, laziness to summer days.  I was thinking of writing my perfect summer day and realised that a lot of it centred on doing nothing at all; reading, sitting, reading, probably a beer.  Perhaps this sense of slowness is a memory of childhood summer holidays, the best thing about the school year being the gaps between them.  Drowsy heat, bees in the borders, long afternoons sitting in the overgrown garden; the ideal summer day.  Yet how often are my days like this?  I get bored sitting, even sitting to read - but not to drink, I've noticed - so even a lazy day is made up of lots of things, of pottering.  Yet still the ideal remains, perhaps because it is unachievable and even unwanted.  

Having said that I made a great summer afternoon, as the weather has been so good.  We baked a chocolate cake this morning and I made lemonade after lunch then washed out a few washing-up liquid bottles so that the boys could have water fights.  Sunshine, water fights, lemonade, chocolate cake; what more is there to a summer afternoon?  Then as I was tidying the garden there was somebody playing the organ in the church over the road. But I am coming to realise that these things don't just happen, one must make them happen, then smaller accidental beautiful things will fit in to the pattern one has made.