Week 26
A midsummer walk
Hello! I hope you have had a beautiful midsummer and have survived the (third??) heat wave. By the time you read these words the weather should have broken, but I sit here in the kitchen with the curtains closed and the fan on. I do love a heatwave, I love the languorousness and luxury of it and the air like a still warm pool to slouch through, but even I can see this is all getting a bit much.
This is our weekly community post in which we track the little things that we have noticed about the season changing, week by week. It can be in nature, in school events, in the greengrocers, even in the supermarket, it might be in the kitchen, the woods or the pool. Whatever you have done or seen this week that made you think ‘hmm isn’t this particularly like this time of year’ - that’s what we are after. I am hoping for lots of midsummer celebrations, for a start.
Speaking of which….here’s mine:
A midsummer walk
The last few years I have done something properly celebratory at midsummer, involving getting up at the crack of dawn, immersing myself in bodies of water, standing by stones as the sun rose etc… I love all of that but last year I did end up sleeping most of the longest day away to catch up, so I thought I would take it a little gentler this time and wake when I woke. With nothing particular planned I went for a woods walk with my mum, everything looking beautifully verdant and full and peak summer-ish.
I am loving all of the greens at the moment, and especially this entrance/portal to the field.
The canopy has not yet completely closed but look what that means on the path…
The paths in the meadows are getting wild and wooly.
And we saw a meadow brown butterfly! I was delighted with myself at identifying it but…we were in a meadow, and it was brown and…well, that might be the limit of my butterfly ID skills.
That’s it from me, now over to you. What have you seen/eaten/smelt/made/spotted/ done this week that felt particularly ‘this week of the year’?
Answers in the comments please.
I don’t think there’s anything nicer than sitting in the garden at twilight, candles twinkling, a glass of something cold and listening to the birds going to bed. The day stretched out as far as it will go.
We are at midwinter - cold, dark and wet - , and marking Matariki, the Maori new year, and observance of the cluster of the Matariki stars (known also as the 7 sisters).