The English Winter – ending in July, to recommence in August.

Winter is long gone and summer days stretch out ahead with promises of endless evenings and bright mornings. Everything is easier in summer, especially dressing. I’ve an endless supply of cotton dresses for work and shorts for play. Big coats, boots, jumpers, tights and woollen hats get packed away and out come the sandals, short skirts and milky white legs. There are girls who spend weeks in preparation for the onset of summer, toning and tanning but I had never seen the point. That was until I got back from Glastonbury with a Mediterranean top half while remaining Celtic from the torso down interspersed with a scattering of a million freckles. A strange sight. So I bit the bullet and bought a bottle of the fake stuff. I could end up a streaky blotchy mess and then I’ll be digging out the tights again long before winter, we’ll see.

Glastonbury was my best yet, not least because most of it was spent in the top-half-tan-inducing sun, aside from a glorious thunderstorm on the Thursday, which we ran and sheltered from in Stonebridge Bar in The Park field. Of course, the main event was Blur, which was more emotional than I could have imagined, kind of perfect. I don’t want them to carry on long-term after these gigs, I want it to be over, done and dusted, friends again and going out on a high. I don’t want years of churning out recycled not-quite-hits.
At the other end of the scale, but awesome nonetheless was Peggy Sue. I like their shy but sure stage presence, I like their style, I like their harmonies, I like their hair, I like their range of instruments, I like them and part of me wants to be them. They are whimsical without being wispy and are everything female-fronted bluesy bands should be. Oh and they have a blog , which is as erratic and irregular as mine, which makes me like them all the more.

Best outfit of the weekend goes to Bat For Lashes. Natasha rocked an amazing lurex and sequin playsuit I could not work out what the netting bit was doing, perhaps some kind of wings. I don’t have the album and had only heard a couple of songs but was intrigued, mainly because we went to primary school together, she had the same lovely mane of hair then and I remember being incredibly jealous of it with my white-blonde wisps. I am so glad I caught the set, her voice is immense and she prances and dances about magically. It’s like all the good bits of Goldfrapp minus the operatics and overblown props. And, inevitably the story-telling and evocative songs bring natural comparisons to Kate Bush and Bjork, though it’s a little more accessible but I suppose only in the sense that it borrows a little from all that’s gone before. I am going to get the album to listen to in the twilight outside. There are certain songs and artists you can only listen to in certain types of weather. Which is why I was glad it was overcast and oppressively close for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Bopping about in the sunshine would not have been appropriate.

My garden is now perfect for twilight, it’s taken two years to turn it from pure patio to almost overgrown, scented sanctuary. Most of the flowers give off their scent in the evening and sitting out there surrounded by blooms with a cup of tea is my current favourite thing to do when I get in from work. Late evenings are spent with wine in hand, waiting to hear the familiar scuffle of one of the 3 hedgehogs that have taken up residency in the cuttings pile I threw over the alley. They were coming to eat the food intended for foxes so now they get their own special cat food sandwiches. The foxes get bread and honey with a few drops of medicine from these lovely people. I’d been leaving food out in the garden though it was more difficult for them to get to as I was not too sure if the people on my allotments liked foxes as much as I do. One by one, it’s transpired that everyone looks after them in their own way, especially now it seems there is just a lone cub. The old Irish man throws sausages over the fence, someone has propped wood next to the cemetery wall to lessen the jump and I see scraps of bread and bowls of water all over the place. He is quite a brazen cub, as he would have to be to survive, he will saunter through happily as everyone stops to watch him pass, even the neighbourhood cats who gather in the allotment pay him little mind.

I am lucky to have such easy access to outdoors, nature and wildlife. Such things keep a person sane and when you have those things at hand, all stress seems to evaporate. The allotment can be hard work, especially in the heat but it’s work that I reap the benefits of and work done by me for me, work with a tangible result which I get to share with others which is, really, what everyone wants in whatever field it may be.

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