...all too short a date;

Although barely the middle of August, It’s hard not to feel that the Summer* is drawing to an end here. This might be because this particular long hot season started so early and remained so relentlessly glorious. It began back in April with the first heatwave and continued, through heat filled days, long, slow sunsets fired with orange before the quickly descending dusk and nights, hot and humid. Then the sun bursting back again behind the hills in the very early morning, already hot and hazy. When the last hot spell finally broke, in a spectacular pyrotechnical display of lightning, thunder and torrential rain, we felt a certain amount of relief. All those long, exhaustingly hot days. Not natural. We thought. Now the garden has drunk deep and the grass is starting to green up, at least in patches. And casualties apart (tomatoes splitting their skins because of too much water at once) it’s looking so much more refreshed. The combination of heat then deluge has sent the weaving stems and gigantic leaves of squashes and pumpkins sprawling like triffids across the vegetable patch. In the much cooler mornings the dew lies heavy on the garden and we wear something a bit warmer, just until later, we say. When it warms up. Although that warming up is no longer a certainty. We are back to enjoying the changeability of climate for which the Monedieres is justly famous. Days are an exciting mix of sunshine and showers, heat and chill. And the short twilight sets in so much earlier. It’s hard not to think of the coming Autumn. There is certainly no shortage of poems written about the seasons, with more than a few focusing on the Summer’s end. From the bard himself, ‘And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;’ to our own Roger McGough’s lament to lost love: monika the sky is blue the leaves are green the birds are singing the bells are ringing for me and my gal the suns as big as an icrecream factory and the corn is as high as an elephants’ i could go on for hours about the beautiful weather we’re having but monika they don’t make summers like they used to... Much has been written about how the Summer’s closing feels like a more momentous ending. There’s an interesting article by Carol Rumen in the Guardian about AE Houseman’s melancholy poem When summer’s end is nighing. You can read the article and the poem at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/15/poem-of-the-week-ae-housman. And in a different style you could look for The End of Summer by Rachel Hadas. Here's an extract. I like the idea that we have options about how we use this season. Over the summer months hung an unspoken aura of urgency. In late July galactic pulsings filled the midnight sky like silent screaming, so that, strangely woken, we looked at one another in the dark, then at the milky magical debris arcing across, dwarfing our meek mortality. There were two ways to live: get on with work, redeem the time, ignore the imminence of cataclysm; or else take it slow, be as tranquil as the neighbors’ cow we love to tickle through the barbed wire fence (she paces through her days in massive innocence, or, seeing green pastures, we imagine so). You can find out more about Rachel and her poetry on The Poetry Foundation’s website, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rachel-hadas#about. Certainly when Summer is in full bloom we take it for granted. Perhaps we all need to take a step back and remember that marking the seasons is really just a standard measure of time and enjoy what nature gives us and when. There is after all six full weeks to go before the Autumn equinox, when the length of day and night is roughly equal. I don’t think it’s quite time yet for Houseman’s rather sad reflections: So here's an end of roaming   On eves when autumn nighs: The ear too fondly listens   For summer's parting sighs,   And then the heart replies. Let’s enjoy the rest of Summer and look forward to those Autumn eves all in good time. * I’m aware that the seasons are not generally capitalized but I’ve come across a number of editors that think they should be - and I agree.