I have been a bad blogger of late. My excuse? It's summer in London. A real, proper summer in London. Not like the lousy summers we've had for the preceding three years that I've been here.
The first summer I ever spent in London I found myself trapped in Oxford because of the floods. That's right - the middle of summer and there were floods trapping us in the town and closing off all roads to London. The second summer I waited patiently for the sun and the heat to arrive and it never did. Last summer the papers promised us a "barbecue summer" but, while there were one or two splendid days, that was it. So you can imagine my delight at having a proper summer for once. I'm determined to make the most of each and every sunny day in case summer stops tomorrow. For that reason, I haven't been writing much.
One of the best things about summer in England is the long days. The sun only seems to finally disappear at around 10 pm, meaning that the afternoons stretch into evenings and picnics can safely run until 9 pm. So we have been having quite a few picnics.
There has also been an endless supply of excellent bands stopping in London as they make their way through Europe on the festival circuit. Last week we saw the Avett Brothers (who were incredible) and a couple of weeks before that we saw Local Natives (also excellent). Tomorrow night we are off to see Grizzly Bear in Hyde Park.
It is also World Cup fever over here, which means lots of pub lunches followed by game watching. I confess I don't know anything about the soccer (or "football", as I'm told I must call it). In fact, the very first World Cup game I watched I had to ask some friends why one player was wearing a different colour to all the other players. They told me it was because he wasn't one of the players - he was the umpire. Not that this lack of knowledge has stopped me from watching the games. In fact, so far as my work colleagues are concerned, I'm a mad keen football fan. That is because all such fans have been allowed to knock off work early to watch the England matches. Last Wednesday afternoon all the mad keen football fans were allowed to leave work at 2 pm to catch the afternoon's match. I insisted I was such a fan even though, in fact, it took me the better part of the game to work out which team was which. Pretending to be a mad keen fan when I'm not was not easy. I had to quickly excuse myself from the conversation when it has turned to matters (things like the team line up or best players) where I thought my ignorance would be uncovered. When questions on those topics were fired at me, I made the excuse I was dying to go to the toilet and bolted out of the room, returning only when it was safe. That avoided my ignorance being uncovered, but I suspect my colleagues now think I have either a very weak bladder or chronic diarrhea.
Today is a blisteringly hot 31 degrees. As I'm typing this I'm looking out the window and thinking that there are better places to be than behind a computer screen. I'm going to try and convince G to come swimming with me in the ponds in Hampstead Heath or to go for a jog. And then it's off to the pub to watch the (likely last) England game of the world cup. I am genuinely barracking for them this time. If they get through, I'm anticipating that us mad keen fans will have a good excuse to take a few more afternoons off work.
I love London in summer!
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