Summer is a time to relax.
Summer offcially lasts from late June to late September but I can’t help associating it in my mind with my long summer holidays which last from mid July to the end of August. I am fortunate enough to be able to take a month of unpaid leave and with my regular two weeks of annual leave on top of that I stop working for six and a half weeks in the summer. This long period of leisure is for me the characteristic feel of summer. This soon disappears once I get back into the swing of things in September, even if in a lucky year there may still be plenty of fine weather yet.
Over the summer I slow down to a different routine and find plenty of time to exercise, walking, cycling and swimming. With the long days and warmth, summer is the time for living outside, for getting closer to nature. There’s time too just to sit and contemplate, even get the water-colours out for a sketch to absorb the scene.
With the heat and the freedom the siesta also becomes a regular feature of the day as the healthy urge to sleep off lunch need no longer be disobeyed.
I don’t miss work. I’m not short of things to do. In fact during a good summer I don’t get round to reading half the books I take with me.
Summer is the time for summer clothes, not having to wear a tie, living in shorts, wearing sandals, feeling light.
Most of our summers follow a similar pattern, some time in the Alps, some in my wife’s home town in Italy and some time by the sea. Summer also means a long time away from home then, with the necessary changes to habit which that brings.
Summer is a special time in the mountains when the snow is at its least extent making it possible to climb many peaks merely by following paths. The flowers are in profusion, the weather relatively clement and the vistas smiling. Gera in the Dolomites is our usual stomping ground (see “About mountains”). It is a simple place at once beautiful and peaceful where my body and mind immediately feel at ease. Somehow familiarity doesn’t breed a blasé feeling but one of receptive appreciation.
Summer is also the time of year when it becomes possible to swim in the sea for a long time and it is not unusual for me to stay in the water for up to an hour.
Our destination of choice for enjoying crystal clear warm water over recent years has been the Croatian coast and in particular the island of Hvar (see “About the seaside”).
The downside of spending the summer in the South of Europe, though, is that it actually gets too hot. August in Monfalcone can be insufferable. In principle it would be great to get up really early and do things before the temperature gets back above 30°, around 10 am. Only in practice, having gone to bed late, because finally the cool of the evening offers pleasant relief to be enjoyed to the most, and then having nonetheless slept badly through the night as it is too hot, getting up early becomes difficult. There are days when merely sitting still I start to sweat. I am left gasping waiting for the next dip in the sea or the arrival of a cooling thunderstorm - oh the joy of rain! This heat tends to sap away my desire to do anything. In practice the hours of 12 to 4 pm have to be written off, spent in the shade and siesta. Some say that in countries like England the rain prevents you from doing certain outdoor activities, well the same is true for me of the sun in the South. I feel a certain frustration at losing a large chunk out of every day. Blue skies and soaring temperatures are much over-rated in my opinion. As an escape an outing to the Julian Alps offers a nice alternative to periodically jumping in the sea.
I keep saying I should spend more of the summer in the Notrth and perhaps next year I will, I certainly enjoyed my brief and, yes, wet spell in Scotland this year.
But wherever I spend it, as long as it continues to be long, summer will be the special time to recharge my batteries and rediscover myself, above all to live a more outdoor and less hurried life. Every season has its charms but summer, perhaps for the change in routine it brings, more than others.
