In progress #006
Small summer joys
The weather in the UK is never predictable, so it can sometimes take a minute for me to realise that summer has arrived. Warm summer days are my absolute favourite — give me a heatwave over a cold snap any time!
I know heatwaves can be unpleasant (my neck fan ran out of battery on the bus today, which was not ideal), but I’m trying to really hold on to and appreciate the things I love about this time of year before the weather turns grey and drizzly again.
Here are five of my favourites:
1/ Berry season
The garden strawberries are nearly done (I think we have two more to come), and I’m already a bit sad about it (we’ve been picking and eating them nearly every day — gardening is magic). But I’ll be getting English strawberries every week for the forseeable because they are so delicious and juicy and sweet.
And today I noticed the the blackberry bushes on the common are absolutely covered in flowers, which means in a month or so we’ll be out there with stained fingers and a tub.
And, technically a berry, according to the internet, THE TOMATOES ARE COMING. We have so many flowers on our two plants, it’s a very exciting garden time.
2/ Fridays at the lido
I’ve got four Fridays before the kids break up for summer, and I am making the most of them. Every Friday you’ll find me poolside, basking like a lizard in the sun, then reviving myself in the cold water.
One of the many reason I love the lido is that it reminds me of my childhood in Trinidad, spending hours at the country club pool with friends, the smell of chlorine and suncream and chips and ketchup all around. It feels like Proper Leisure Time in a way nothing else in my life does.
(And yes, in theory I could go to the lido with the kids once they break up — maybe we will go once or twice — but it is Not The Same Experience At All to go with kids vs having the time to myself, in the hot sun, reading my Kindle with my feet in the water.)
3/ Sea swimming
I did manage to get in the sea when we went to Dorset last month, but the water was still icy, so didn’t stay in long. However, with our summer holiday coming, I’m already daydreaming about swimming and kayaking in the ocean, floating on my back, just looking up at the sky. There’s something about sea water that resets you in a way nothing else does.
4/ Peonies
Yes I’m basic, but I absolutely love peony season. They’re kind of expensive, but if you buy them tight and closed they last for eons, which actually makes them brilliant value (this is the kind of maths I am very willing to do). Watching them open slowly over a week or two is its own little daily joy. I bought some for myself last weekend and a friend bought me some this week, so lots to look forward to here.
5/ Walking through the woods
I tend to avoid the woods near our house when it’s wet as it can get so muddy, but on a hot summer’s day, it’s the best place to go for a cool walk. Dappled light and shade, the sound of the leaves moving overhead, the temperature dropping a few degrees as you step under the canopy. For a minute it feels like you’ve stepped out of time and out of zone 3.
June in progress
A few of the things I’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks:
📺 TV:
I loved this season of Four Seasons, it properly made me laugh out loud a couple of times and was very moving at others.
I’m most of the way through Two Weeks in August. Ahhhh it’s so painful to watch in parts, deeply cringey, but also can’t stop watching it.
📚 Books: I finished:
This Must Be The Place — I love Maggie O’Farrell (even if I couldn’t read Hamnet)
House of Earth and Blood — I was told that I should read the Crescent City series before the new ACOTAR comes out, and although it took me a while to get into (I kept thinking I’d accidentally started in book 2), I ended up racing through this, which is no mean feat at over 800 pages.
The DOSE Effect — Some of this is quite common sense information about things you should do to help yourself be healthier and happier (drink less! eat better! move your body! etc), but actually I think the D section in particular (looking at Dopamine) was super interesting and I’m going to try to encourage the kids to read it by giving it a £5 value (I give them £1 for every chapter book over 200 pages they finish, so it’s a big step up).
🛍️ Loving:
I think I’ve covered the things I’ve been loving lately but here are some more bits:
I decided to get these shelves in the kitchen and they are sooooo pretty. The space between the shelves and the seating is a little tight, but I think it’s worth it because they look so good.
I got this bathing suit earlier today at the Toco pop up shop in Earlsfield and it is so flattering! Toco Swim is the bikini company my cousins run, so admit I am 100% biased, but they have gorgeous shapes and super soft fabrics. I bought it to have a slightly snazzier swimsuit for our holiday in the summer, but I think I’ll be wearing it to the lido. I usually wear a 10/12 and got a medium. I got also have gone up a size to a large (I tried both) but preferred the snugger fit.
📰 Articles:
My costs have gone up and my income has gone down. I love nosying into people’s finances — this is something so many people can relate to right now, and thought it was a great breakdown of which costs have gone up, where income has gone down, and what the writer is doing to make up that difference.
This is fast becoming my favourite weekly newsletter, especially because last week it brought me this, which brought so much joy to me and both kids:
How are you? How has your month been? What have you been watching and reading and listening to? What are the small summer things you’re loving right now? Drop me a reply or leave a comment and tell me what’s on your list.
PS! The Joy of Beginning is always free but…
Thank you for reading! The Joy of Beginning will always be free to access, but I’ve decided to turn on payments just on the off-chance someone thinks ‘hey, I’d love to pay for Katie’s next few lido visits’.
There will be no additional content for paid subscribers, but you can upgrade to paid to support me and this hobby I enjoy so much. If you would like to support without a monthly / annual payment, you can also buy me a coffee :)