Another blue sky day. It was already hot when I went out running earlier this morning. It’s one of those days when you feel you should wash everything because it will all dry so quickly. Indeed, you almost wish you could wash stuff several times over to avoid having to wash it on dull and damp days.
Instead we might cut the grass. Or at any rate, Phil might cut the grass. We have been putting off cutting it as the bees have been enjoying the clover flowers. But most of those flowers are dying off now and the grass has grown ridiculously long in some parts of the garden. And there is a huge dock plant growing up nicely at one point. We should preserve that for those occasions when you get a nettle sting and cannot find a dock leaf anywhere.
When the weather is like this many people plan barbecues. As for me I just want to plan salads. It’s the ideal food for sunny days. Food writer Jay Rayner disagrees with me.
“When these, the summer months, roll around”, he writes, “I imagine myself to be one of those heat-kissed, carefree types in a loose white linen shirt, doing sensitive things with nature’s seasonal bounty. I desperately want to be the man who dreams of halving the pertest of cherry tomatoes, then showering them with the petals of purple chive flowers. Add glugs of peppery olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, a crunch of sea salt, then push the plate into the middle of the table while whispering: “When the ingredients are this good you just need to let them shine, don’t you?”
I want to be the man who pairs curls of charred squid with fronds of balsamic-slicked rocket; who places ice cubes into bowls of brilliant red gazpacho with a self-satisfied sigh; who does interesting things with berries and a dollop of creme fraiche. I want to be this man but I am not. My heart and, more importantly, my stomach aren’t in it. I must acknowledge my true nature. I am a winter cook currently forced to endure the summer months.”
What he craves are sturdy meat pies and the like, what I think of as comfort food, to be eaten when the nights have drawn in. He even sees a certain intolerance towards comfort foods in the summer time:-
“And there’s something else. While the hot summer months mitigate the good things, the cold winter months do not exclude the feeble pleasure of summeriness. If you want a tomato and chive salad alongside your steak and kidney suet pudding in December you can have it. Knock yourself out. That doesn’t work the other way round, does it? No, it doesn’t. I rest my case. The problem is, the strength of my argument doesn’t change the fact that it is still July. And I am hungry.”
Having expressed my preference for salad, however, I must confess to still enjoying a nice peppery mushroom soup before my salad, even on hot days.
Three years ago today, my son, his wife, some of their friends, my Spanish sister and I were heading out to Hyde Park to see Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor and Paul Simon in an outdoor concert. My sister reminded us of this today by sharing a memory Facebook threw up for her: all of us dancing barefoot in the park. Those were the days. I wonder when we will be able to do that sort of thing again.
On the radio news they have just said that some are warning of the need to reimpose a lockdown in the UK if cases of Covid continue to rise. All this just as we are about to lift all restrictions - the so-called Freedom Day. Meanwhile, the phone app pinging people to tell them to isolate is driving many people crazy and disrupting all sorts of services.
In some parts of the country rubbish bins are not being collected because of staff shortages due to Covid cases and self-isolating. In South Tyneside and Sunderland, the NHS foundation trust has staff to postpone holidays because of the increase in cases. But we keep being assured that hospitalisation is decreasing and that this means all is well. We shall see!
I think I’ll just get a garden chair out and sit in a shady place in the garden with a good book. Maybe I’ll watch Phil cut the grass at the same time.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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