Summer Days at CLIPSTONE

Summer dish of crudo sea trout and microleaves at London restaurant Clipstone

Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.. Clipstone

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

 

“Fell into a sea of grass
And disappeared among
The shady blades.
Children all ran over me
Screaming tag! You are the one!

Summertime Rolls, Jane’s Addiction

 

Wake up, it’s a beautiful morning,
Feel the sun shining for your eyes.
Wake up, it’s so beautiful,
For what could be the very last time..

Wake Up Boo, The Boo Radleys

 

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Maybe it’s just me, but some places just seem to exude a particular atmosphere, one that especially suits one season or another.

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Meat n’ Veg at ROCHELLE CANTEEN; Sometimes It’s Just The Simple Things

Rochelle Canteen - where I am wowed by the simplicity of brisket, carrot and sauerkraut

A drop of water suspended on a crocus petal.

Turning over the final page of a much-loved novel.

A starry sky.

The lonely strum of a single guitar string.

Swirling clouds of milk in freshly-poured tea.

Waves rolling against a pebbly shore.

Dipping roast potatoes into gravy whilst no-one is looking.

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Don’t worry, I’m not going to burst into song, at least not just yet. These aren’t necessarily my favourite things. No, this post is about the simple things, although I’d probably consider them my favourite things too. After all, it is often the simple things that connect with us most.

But why?

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Winter has come; Where there’s light there’s HOPPERS

Hoppers London - where bone marrow varuval has me howling to the moon

 

“The White Witch? Who is she?”
“Why.. it’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter, and never Christmas..”

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis, 1950.

 

“At this moment you should be with us,
Feeling like we do.. like you love to
But never will again.
I miss you my dear, Xiola.
I prepared the room tonight with christmas lights,
A city of candles…”

Three Days, Jane’s Addiction, 1990

 

My childhood winters were cold Northern affairs. Stretching across the horizon, the distant Pennines lay dark and brooding, looming over Bury like a dormant dragon, its arched back frosted with fairy-dust snow. There, we’d take our sledges and run them down those Lancashire slopes, fast and true: the icy air stinging our watery eyes, the sledge barely skimming the snowy ground below. We were Peter Pan, we were Tinkerbell.

Of all the seasons, Winter kindled the imagination the most: a twilight zone where reality and fairytale would come together before waltzing off into a blur. Each evening, with the garden shrouded in dusk and the air stifled by unearthly silence, we’d joyously roll about in the crunching snow, crafting igloos out of ice-bricks, crawling into these dens safe and snug from the creatures lurking just beyond..

..Then comes a mother’s call. A warm embrace. The sound of water splashing in a distant room. Steam slipping underneath a bathroom door. I’d leap into the bath, my goose-bumped skin ablaze with the sudden heat.

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Peas at THE DAIRY, Spring Is In The Air

 

Spring. The season of rebirth. Revered by world religions with festivals of joy, hope and redemption: Easter, Passover, Spring Equinox. Even Jedi-ism marks the sacred season with holidays such as Ewok Monday and Luke-I-Am-Your-Father’s Day. And if ever there was a season where the Force reveals, surely it is Spring. Life erupting from the Earth’s very crust, green shoots exploding from the ground to greet the sun’s rays. View Post