Week 25

The canopy closes, poppies (again!), book signing...

Hello! Well this is at least a little more like it…as we slink up to the solstice I am at least able to leave the backdoor open while I work, and hang out a washing, and we have had a couple of glorious days, which I missed…of which more later… There has also been football, which I grow interested in exactly once every two years. I think I just love the togetherness and the summeriness of the World Cup/Euros, the streets ringing with shouts from open windows, drinking beer on a weekday evening with the curtains gently wafting. I thought I wouldn’t get sucked in this time because of everything, but what an opening game from England. I’m in.

This is our weekly community post in which we track the seasons in their minutiae week by week, asking ‘what has been particular about this week in the year? What made it different to any other?’ I tell you mine and then you tell me yours.

Here’s mine:

The canopy closing

This reflection in the water at the woods looked so beautiful, though hard to capture in a photograph. But it also shows the new green and glowiness of the woods, which is to say: the canopy is closing. I always slightly dread the bit after this as part of our woods is in a valley and it becomes very dark and gloomy. Oddly enough something always seems to occur in the woods at this time of year that gives me a bit of a weird feeling about them - an unsettling encounter, a rumour of something having happened there - and I abandon it until autumn when it lightens up. I realise it has happened again. It’s not over yet, but me and the woods are on borrowed time.

Poppies (again!)

I did put a picture of poppies in the chat on Sunday morning but they were different ones and look at these! They deserved their own spot. Poppies everywhere at the mo.

Book signings…

Actually not quite book signings but ‘tip-in’ signing. Here is a sneak peak of the title page of The Almanac 2027, which I had to sign and send back so that they can be incorporated into the books as they are printed. Very nifty. A chunk of these special signed copies will go to Waterstones and the rest to independent book shops.

Unfortunately I thought I should leave this until the weekend, thinking ‘it’s just signing a few pieces of paper, how long can it take?’ It was in fact 2,615 pieces of paper and the answer to that question is ‘the entirety of a beautiful sunny weekend’. My name became an entirely abstract concept to me by the end of it, and I think I actually forgot who I was twice (‘who is this “Lia Leendertz”?’) If you find yourself in possession of one of these signed copies do think of me on the sunniest weekend of the summer!

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That’s it from me, now over to you. What have you done/cooked/preserved/drank/smelt etc etc…this week that felt particular to this moment in the year? Answers in the comments below please.