An English Summer Solstice

Summer in London might be described as more of a mindset than a season. That’s not entirely true of course. It’s not really possible to conjure the mood of summertime when it’s cold and rainy, so the consistent presence of the sun clearly has a role. So perhaps I should say instead that like any season in England, summer arrives unpredictably and behaves erratically. You might hear the locals say something like “Last year, summer came in early May and lasted three weeks.” One thing readers in the southeastern or mid-Atlantic United States should appreciate is that you can generally rule out a consistent string of days in the 90s bracket. Generally, I said. On the whole, summer is a temperate affair here: temperature-wise, it might not seem that much different than spring, lingering pleasantly in the 60s and 70s with the occasional cold, rainy day that makes you want to light a fire or hot day that prompts you to pull out the electric fan. Apparently, the fan kept in the closet below the stairs in our building was bought at a yard sale for five quid (the orange hand-written price tag has been left on it by the purchaser, perhaps as a mark of pride). The reason for this bargain becomes clear when you set yourself in front of the fan at full speed and realize that you can’t actually feel any breeze coming off of it. You just trust that it’s circulating the air and generally cooling things down.

The days at this latitude have indeed become quite long—with sunrise at 4:30 a.m. and sunset at 9:30 p.m. However, the arrival of the summer solstice this past Saturday was admittedly anticlimactic. We spent it in Yorkshire visiting friends who live in a lovely little village of a couple hundred inhabitants called Nun Monkton. We woke on June 21st to a day of gusting winds, rain and cool temperatures. We had planned to visit the ruins of a former abbey called Jervaux and went out anyway, trudging around the beautiful ruins of the former Cistercian monastery in the rain and wet grass. The sheep in the surrounding pastures huddled beneath trees for shelter, bleating at passersby. We huddled in a café afterwards instead. When we returned home, our hosts brought us hot tea and started a coal fire, so that we could dry our cold, wet feet. We heard a number of jokes that day about the fine weather we were having for the longest day of the year. We commiserated and almost felt like locals. J even bought a traditional Herford cap in grey (if you know him, you’ll appreciate his color preference) to commemorate our day in the country and, more practically, to keep the rain off his head. It’s quite fetching.

 

That evening, I ventured out in the rain with our friend Suzanne to attend a girls-only Nun Monkton Summer Solstice Party. This party is apparently an annual event for the local women of the village, and since it is attended by many mothers, it has the benefit of allowing the women to have a night off without having to seek out a babysitter. We were to dine al fresco, presumably to enjoy a long summer’s night, so I admit that I felt hesitant to attend an outdoor party on a rainy night with gale-force winds. I had visions of women huddled under a tent together, trying to enjoy their finger foods and the local gossip without getting their heels stuck in the mud. So it came as a very pleasant surprise to find that our host, a brash but lively and welcoming woman named Ulrika, had set up a long, sturdy tent that was perfectly dry and protected from the rain and hung with pictures and lamps. The long table (set for 30 women) was set for a formal dinner and strewn with red roses.

 

As we arrived, Ulrika had us draw a number to determine our seat for the evening with the no doubt intended effect of forcing us to be brave socially. I found myself at the opposite end of the table from my friend in the good company of some local women and a German woman who had been practising medicine in Yorkshire for several years. Over the next SIX hours, we enjoyed a four-course dinner, wine, coffee, conversation and a series of humiliating pop quizzes provided by our host. In case you’re the kind of person who loves reading menus, ours included: spicy shrimp salad, goulash with sauerkraut (Ulrika was from the former East Germany), meringue with cream and strawberries drizzled with chocolate, and a plate of English cheeses.

 

This lengthy monologue was intended as a prelude to a list of our favorite summer outings in the Big Smoke, but it’s turned into some ruminations on the arrival of summer in England. So look for another post to follow soon with thoughts on the best ways to get outside when the sun is shining in London.

 

-HDE