This time of year I’m always struggling to keep cool and stay focused.
Hay fever causes my right eye to drip like an old tap and the rise in temperature makes me an enemy of my own wardrobe. Even the lightest of fabrics still feel like a heavy curtain when there is no breeze around.
On top of that, the arrival of the flying bugs that see me as their personal smorgasbord. I have always been particularly tasty to bitey things who leave me with an itch that can never be satisfied. I can of course pre-empt them by smothering myself in carcinogenic ‘Deet’ but I don’t want to smell like I’ve been sat by the side of a dank canal all day.
It all adds up to an irritable and non-productive atmosphere that most people would counteract by simply going away on holiday. It’s perfectly fine to have swollen ankles if the mozzies got to you in Barbados but not so cool when it’s on the way back from The Co-Op in Badcox.
June is pretty non productive for other reasons, like Glasto!
The festival that actually lasts only three days but seems to build up and wind down longer every year and leaves the streets empty of all but a few lost souls. I fantasise about being at Glasto and soaking up all the fun and atmosphere, the same way as I fantasise about being twenty again.
The reality is that there is no pop pundit or sans stellar singer out there that would make me want to line up for the loo with a thousand other bulging bladders and a limited supply of toilet paper. I am what is politely referred to as a senior. I have earned the right to be as curmudgeonly as I like and I know that happiness comes with an en suite bathroom.
Out of the stagnant and hot malaise of June has come the blissful relief of the sudden downfall of Boris Johnson. He roared and thunder clapped his dismay at the findings of the partygate commission but the facts could not be held back any longer and the deluge took him with it. I wish I could say that this means that things will now start to grow back happy and healthy but too much damage has been done. Rishi Sunak having already diverted huge amounts of water from the grid into his own swimming pool is not the one to save us from further drought. He is a weed in the cracks that keeps clinging on where nobody wants him.
If you, like me, are still in town and looking for somewhere to mooch or let off steam about the state of the union then come see me in my shop, I have an electric fan and some great cards and gifts.
Enjoy the good the bad and ugly!
Kate x
