Sun, Showers and Strawberries
Monday, June 16, 2014
I think it's fair to say that the seasons marked out in the calendar are fairly arbitrary for anyone living in the United Kingdom. They never start or end when we expect (if they start at all, that is) and are liable to switch from one to the other at a moment's notice. This, people from far-flung climes, is why we talk about it so much. We complain about it, but we love it really. Drizzle is in our blood. Still, it gets to a point when enough is enough. We want summer. And we want it now.
So I think we should go ahead and make it.
In the absence of a direct line to the goddesses of the seasons, I find summer food to be a good antidote to Grey-Skies-in-June Syndrome. Particularly summer fruit. Thanks to globalisation (and the occasional good greenhouse in Dorset, I hasten to add), we Brits can at least find comfort in the fact that while our summer seems dubious, other places are bathed in sunshine and are thus in the position to help us out of our Vitamin D-deprived funk. Even if it's 14 degrees and cloudy, a dish piled high with nectarines and peaches can make us feel the summer, even if we can't see it.
The symbolic value of a summery fruit (in that in pertains to sunshine/school holidays/being outside and therefore happiness, at least in my mind) stimulates my interest and excitement more than a Conference pear or clementine ever really could. There is nothing quite like the first bite of the first strawberry of the year. It makes me think of barbecues at the neighbours', the sound of Wimbledon on the television, and lying on the grass. I can't help but smile. Then there's the surprising sherbertyness of flat peaches, and the satisfying thunk as you separate a cherry from its stalk with your teeth. I learnt at the beach that apricots must always be eased into two halves with your thumbs to ensure that there is nothing else having a nibble at it from the inside, and my grandmother insists that you can only judge a melon by giving it a good rap with your knuckles and listening to the reverberation inside. The smell of overripe plums is the scent of the back garden at the old house, where I would run around, grubby and sticky in my bare feet, rejoicing in the extended twilight that meant I could play for longer. Memories that are all perfectly preserved, ready to be brought to the fore, Proust-like, with a single mouthful.
In a grey and soggy nation such as ours, the thought of summer is one that gives hope in the grimmest of months, and that hope remains steadfast, despite all the rained-off picnics and cancelled rounders matches. We continue to believe, against all odds, that it will come. And if it doesn't, we can sit on the sofa with a bowl of strawberries and cream and watch people getting wet at Wimbledon. And that's not too bad a compromise.
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