So what has happened to flaming June? People have talked about putting the heating back on, wearing thick woolly socks and boots instead of sandals………….then you wonder why people crave a holiday in the Mediterranean.
This afternoon I helped out at a garden which was open as part of the National Gardens Scheme. Such a great idea to raise money for charities. I was tea-making, in charge of the urn. Today they had about 70 visitors, yesterday a hundred, which is very impressive. Certainly we seemed to be cutting up cake and giving out cream teas with great rapidity. I did manage to have a look round the lovely garden too. They have quite a menagerie in addition, rabbits, chickens, a cat and a dog.
It is very hard to do justice to the variety of plants and flowers in the garden: here are two which caught my eye.
No one talks about summer holidays, or anything much in the future. Everyone gives the impression of marking time. A locked down life does really seem to be the new normal, a situation which I never thought could happen. Yet another family event is about to be cancelled: it seems futile to plan anything really. I idly looked at some accommodation in Cornwall for 2022: much of it is already fully booked. It seems clear that people do not expect to be taking a foreign holiday any time soon. Let alone visit friends or relatives who live abroad.
I see the Summer Solstice is at 4.31am tomorrow, no celebrations at Stonehenge this year. But perhaps there will be moonlight: so Debussy’s Claire de Lune.
