Summer is here!
BLOG POST
6/1/20264 min read
June is here. A new month. Not only a new month, but a new season.
Here we are at the beginning of summer. There are two commonly recognised starts to summer (and indeed any season): the astronomical start of summer, which is the summer solstice, usually on 20 or 21 June, and the meteorological start of summer, which is 1 June. The astronomical start is determined by the Earth’s tilt as it orbits the Sun and gives us the equinoxes in spring and autumn, when day and night are roughly equal in length, and the solstices, which mark the longest day (summer) and longest night (winter). The equinoxes and solstices also coincide with the astrological seasons in Western astrology, when the Sun enters one of the cardinal signs of the zodiac (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn).
What a lot of ways there are to determine the start of a season! Personally, I like to go with the meteorological starts, giving three months to each season. So that gives us June, July and August for summer.
That said, I have started to recognise a fifth season of ‘late summer’: the end of August and the beginning of September. The days are shortening, but it’s sometimes still warm; there’s no sign of jumpers and hats, and we’re still in a bit of a chilled-out post-holiday mood. But we’re not there yet.
Why delineate the seasons so rigidly? Well, we can’t really, can we? The thought of controlled weather which shifts exactly every three months, especially in today’s climate of climate change – indeed, we’ve just had a banger of a heatwave in the UK at the end of May, with temperatures rising well over 30 degrees – is somewhat ludicrous, but there are overall rhythms and patterns.
I do delineate the seasons nevertheless because there is something so rejuvenating about a seasonal reset. There is much you can reset every season: what you eat and wear, and your daily routines. To a certain extent this happens naturally: jumpers and jeans get swapped out for shorts and T-shirts; we eat more cold food and fewer baked potatoes. I like to lean into the change very intentionally with a mindset shift.
Spring and autumn seem such busy seasons to me. They are known as the transitional seasons, and it’s clear why: they are going somewhere. Spring moves from the dormancy of winter to summer’s fertility – see how your garden grows in that time – and autumn is the reverse. It starts with the shedding of summer’s abundance and ends with winter’s fallow rest. With summer and winter there is a sense of arrival and constancy throughout the season, in contrast to the continuous change of spring and autumn.
Unlike winter’s resting, hibernating stillness, summer’s slow down is more about fulfilment and enjoyment. Spring is about regrowth and rejuvenation until you reach summer, when you can kick up your heels and relax, enjoy yourself and have fun. There are more social occasions, and summer is when most people take a proper break from work and day-to-day life.
Food takes such a turn in the summer. I take seasonal eating so seriously that I don’t buy tomatoes and cucumbers until the summer. Cucumbers, for me, are a summer food par excellence! That refreshing, cooling flavour. I find it so sad when people buy the same tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce week in, week out for the whole year. I use tinned tomatoes until English tomatoes appear in the shops. And I have survived!
Salads, seafood, barbecued meat and fish are something I really relish. Cucumber and mint is such a summery flavour combination. Fresh herbs come in abundance now, either grown in one’s own garden or bought at farmers’ markets. (The supermarkets stock them year-round, so you don’t really feel that change there.) They can be chopped up and added to almost everything for a flavour boost.
You can revel in the most delicious fresh fruit over the summer. It’s time to let citrus and chocolate step back and make the most of summer fruit. The quintessential summer berry, the strawberry; luscious raspberries; later blackberries and blueberries; and then all the stone fruits, both home-grown plums and imported apricots, nectarines and peaches. Melons, too. Nothing says summer more than a thirst-quenching melon.
Summery cuisine often reflects our summer holiday destinations: Provençal platters of melon /jambon, tapenade and olives; Italian tomato and basil dishes; Greek tarama and tzatziki dips with flatbreads, stuffed courgette flowers and vine leaves. Seafood, in its many guises, is lighter and sometimes more welcome than heavier meat-based dishes and keeps the marine holiday vibe going.
In keeping with the holiday mood, it’s the time of year to take everything outside if you can. Eating, obviously. Even if it’s just your morning coffee, ideally with a bowl of fresh summer fruit and yoghurt. Exercising is so much more enticing and doable when it’s outside, catching some actual rays of morning sunshine with your sun salutations. Relaxing, too: taking your afternoon tea into the garden when you work from home; spending an afternoon reading in the park at the weekend; enjoying an appropriately summery cocktail (for me, that’s a Campari Spritz) at the end of a busy day, toasting the day’s productivity.
For every season, I keep a rolling list of things that are particular to that season, which I relish and savour because they are unique to that time of year. Here they are:
1. Strawberries
2. Throwing doors and windows open
3. Blue skies and swifts
4. The roses in bloom
5. Watering the garden in the early evening
6. BBQs
7. Feeling warm
8. Morning yoga in the garden
9. Things drying quickly – doing jobs like washing throws and rugs
10. Hanging washing out in the garden and having it dry quickly
11. Saturday morning lake swims from June to September
12. Long evenings, late twilight
13. Iced coffee
14. Hot weather routine
15. Artichokes
16. Tinto de Verano (only over 30°!)
17. Late midsummer evenings, a chilled glass of rosé, stillness, and watching for bats
18. Canoeing on the river
19. Cucumbers
20. Swimming in the river
21. Melon and jambon
22. Caprese salad
23. Campari Spritzes
24. Melons and peaches
25. Chilled rosé
26. Flavouring desserts with geraniums or lavender
27. A reading break in the garden, in the shade, with an iced coffee
28. Fresh peas and broad beans
29. Going to the seaside
30. September’s end-of-summer vibe: purposeful, but mellow
31. Blackberry picking
32. September’s golden light
Enjoy the changes of the season, and I wish you sunshine, strawberries and roses in June!