A (South) London Summer
This was a summer of heat; the heatwave stayed and stayed and stayed and outstayed it’s welcome. London became a city of the restless, the under slept, the please-don’t-make-me-commute-in-this-any-more. The grass dried out, parks turned brown, leaves fell off trees in shock. Long, muggy nights followed by long, balmy days.
This was a summer of rivers, ponds, picnics. A summer of walking back and forth and over and along the Thames, the sunset caught in the glass of the towers keeping watch over the river. Slow, meandering walks home through Georgian squares and tree-lined streets.
This was a summer of bathing in Hampstead Ladies’ Bathing Pond – taking slow walks up the hills of the Heath, talking each other out of breath. Diving in and lazily bobbing around buoys, pond leaves curling around our feet as ducks glided past and herons flew overhead; an idyllic oasis and then a bus ride home.
Fresh apricots for breakfast, warmed by the early morning sun. Cooling yoghurt in the evening, piled with raspberries, blueberries, strawberries. Cherry pits and stems piling up in a bowl.
Picnics on balconies – your place and mine. Rosé by the slowing sun, the gentle cooling of the air, the ground, of bodies. Bowls of soft summer fruits and smatterings of torn mint.
Picnics in parks – the ground a lush green, becoming drier over the summer until bleached and coarse. But still we picnicked. An assemblage of crisps, hummus, berries, and salads; a dish became a signature with repetition.
For a while we were a nation distracted – St. George’s flags became more common a site the deeper we went in the World Cup. Players shimmied through – first the group stages (“Come on, my boys,” bellowed from the balcony into the park), then the quarter final, then the semi-final with that early goal met with cheers called across neighbourhoods, down and out and over the river.
This was a summer of attempting to stay cool indoors. Reading with the soft evening sun, the cooling breeze; dappled light through the softly swaying curtain. The world stupefied in the hazy, restless, muggy city.
When the rain fell after two long months of absence, two long months of unexpected leave, the exclamations were biblical. It felt almost unrecognisable – that sound, that smell, that holy combination of cool air, hard raindrops, dry, hot earth.
This was a summer of friends visiting, of adventures to lavender fields, of films, and books, and art. This was a summer of exploring new neighbourhoods and re-visiting old ones. This was a summer of beer gardens, housemates, a celebration of two, returned from afar and united in love. This was a summer of clarity, uncertainty, and taking new steps.
This was a (South) London Summer.
"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
– The Naked City, 1948