Summer meets Autumn.

I'm a Summer girl, really. So I've been loving the heat wave this week. It appears I'm not the only one either - I finally made it to my favourite park today with a camera, and took a few sneaky shots of the public's enjoyment of the heat.
So here is South Park in the sun:


A slightly wonky shot of the famous spires - sorry about that, guys.


Some beautiful colour in those trees.


People enjoying the shade under said trees...


Lens flare, woot!


A rather dramatic catch from the guy in the blue shorts - I felt like I should have been applauding, but that would have drawn attention to the fact I was taking their picture.


Beautiful shadows stretched across the grass...


I feel like putting in this photo is bad form, seeing as it's vertical instead of horizontal, but I like it, so the OCD people out there will have to make do :P


And a final full shot of the park from the top of the main hill. How I love this space.

Now I've shown you the Summer, let me tell you the Autumn. Walking along the grass barefoot (of course, why wear shoes?) I came across a patch that had been blanketed with the dried flames of crisp fallen leaves. If you have never shuffled barefoot through a layer of Autumn leaves on a bright green carpet of soft grass, you have not experienced life to the full. I would recommend this experience especially for those of us who specially walk close to the wall so they can crackle through drifts of leaves on the pavement, or find themselves walking the street funny because they want to crunch a leaf under their foot with every step. Yes, I'm talking to you...

Sweet summer Rec

Ten pence apple pie. An icecream apiece;
sticky sweet fingers and chocolate cold tongues.
Tarmac-hot air swirls around our bare arms.
Park sat on cricket mat. Watch them boys stare;
a football kicked high and six pack showed off.
The first drops of rain land on open palms.

Ending.

So, it’s all over. No more exams, no more college. Ever again. It’s a strange thought. A very strange thought. For the last couple of years, college has been my life and suddenly- it’s over. After my last exam on Thursday I went out with a few of my classmates; we pulled four tables together in the pub nearest the college and spent three good hours talking and eating and talking and drinking and talking and laughing. We did a lot of talking. Many of these people I will never see again. Everyone’s going their separate ways now. Some are staying around to continue their education, some have jobs lined up to start, some are going travelling. Although some of us made promises to keep in touch, that dinner was mainly a goodbye for most of us. I’m going to miss them. It really is a strange thought.
I’ve just realized how down-in-the-mouth I sound about that. Well, yes, but at the same time: No more exams! Haha! I’ve been dancing on tables, in a purely figurative way, and dancing in the streets in a very literal way.

So the summer has come. And here I am, sitting on my bed at 6 30am, with the sun streaming through the windows, gazing around my room at the cardboard boxes, books, videos, clothes and general mess. I must hasten to tell you - it is not just my room that looks like this. I think that so far half the rooms in the house (bathrooms excluded) have had this same treatment. There are two reasons for this:
A) Dad's moving his office into the house
B) We have to have moved out of this house by the end of January (although we‘re hoping before Christmas). Our landlady wants to renovate.
Fifteen years of accumulated stuffs is finding itself rearranged and stacked and packaged. The loft is slowly, very slowly, being sorted through, one box at a time. So far fifteen bags of this-that-and-the-other have gone to charity shops, along with a chest of drawers, a bedside table and a cot, and the house feels even more full than ever. The fact that we will probably still be here in four months time appears to have escaped everyone’s notice. Then again, fifteen years of belongings is a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff.

Meeting.

And there she is. Black shape against the grey, crumbling wall. A smile spreads across my face. Her head is bent over her phone and her bag is at her feet. It's been, what, two months? Feels like so much longer; it's funny how slowly time goes when you're waiting for something. And suddenly I can see the end of college ahead of me, and the start of summer, and the days and nights and weekends with those I love. No longer just a wish, but a slowly approaching reality.

The relief is crippling. In two weeks this will all be over. A new set of responsibilities, but a new, beautiful freedom.

She lifts her head and returns my smile. Hello, summer.

Get this..!

Ohh, the sun. So many things to love!

The light! Bright, colourful and (dare I say it?) happy...
The raised levels of testosterone; the lowered sunglasses and hair flicks as the chemical love grooows.
The fake tan and the outrageous only-just-there outfits adopted by every last skinny girl out there. The sunbathing and strutting and smiling.
The topless guys playing football/frisbee in the parks. The way they constantly find ways of heading the ball in a pretty girl's direction, just for a split seconds engagement.
The uneven tan lines and patchy burns that signal too much time out in the sun.
The (often bad) music thudding out from open-top cars as they sweep by. The fact that it doesn't matter what music is playing any more, as long as it's prompting you to "do the D.A.N.C.E". The soundtrack of summer.
The screams and joy and laughter that come with the childish enjoyment of the first water fight of the year (!!)
The way you no longer have to check in your bag for an umbrella or a jumper or a scarf, in case the Spring day isn't quite as warm as you originally thought.

And the fact that even though all throughout winter the British population has been complaining of the cold and wishing for sun and warmth and summer, the minute the heat heat heat arrives, Britain asks for "Just a little bit more of a breeze"... Continue to complain that it's too hot to do anything, Britain! Meanwhile I'll get out my sunglasses and enjoy it while it's here...

S-s-s-sun.

My darling! I have abandoned you..! My creative juices have been running slow, slow, s l o o o w . . . So slow that the only creativity I have been indulging in is my doodling. And even that has not found itself up onto the blank web-page. But enough of that.

Wow, my internet is slow today as well... I blame it on the heat. That gorgeous, beautiful, saturating, soaking, sublime, (Look at that sibilance! I blame the English Bug), lovely lovely lovely, amazing, gorgeous heat. The sun has been shining all day. The heat I could never believe, not for Britain. Apparently it's going up to twenty-seven degrees tomorrow. I'm ready for it, with my sun cream and straw trilby and shorts...
Today, though, was awesome. Revision be stuffed - I spent the day lazing in the garden with a girlfriend and having a full-on water fight out front in the afternoon. What is it about the sun that brings out the childish delight in everything, and yet soaks your head with such heat that after only an hour of movement you feel like you could relax into a puddle of nothingness and stay there for the rest of the day? It's like a drug. The most natural drug around. And the only side effects are ones that come from not taking enough care ie. burns and headaches. Someone should find a way of bottling this stuff up and handing it out as a depression cure. Who needs prescription drugs with the sun on tap?

Enough of this rambling. Suffice to say...
"Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel. Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel. It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me... And I'm feeling goooooood!"