COOL-BRIGHT

I’d say, in just the way you’d want it, the weather has gone cool-bright as I’ve gone back to work today. 

Cool-bright is better than baking-blue (last week) but not perhaps as enticing or as pure as breezy-blue, which often has a few wisps of fluffy white in it. Breezy-blue is probably my favourite. But for working, cool-bright is about right. It’s that kind of summer’s day which sports full, but very thin cloud cover. Translucent. The sun gets through, but not enough to throw sharp shadows.

I kicked off the morning with a return to the gym. Is there anything harder than the first gym after a holiday? I know we’re not the kind of people to go full pina-colada-sun-lounger on hols, but nevertheless, I could still feel the difference. I shuffled off the treadmill, aching and exhausted like an Olympic triathlete. 2km said the treadmill, basically at walking pace.

In fact, I was so tired, on the way home I tried to overtake a line of traffic waiting at a red signal. I thought it was parked! Angry lorry drivers made hand gestures at me as I waited alongside them for the lights to turn green. Thankfully, nothing was coming the other way. The lights changed and I waited (on the wrong side of the road of course) until the end of the queue, which I followed sheepishly through the temporary traffic lights. I didn’t like to think what profanities were being uttered in my direction.

Cool-bright reminds me of school summer holidays too. These were the days I would listen to cricket, or read up about the great explorers, or just go to the park with mates to try volleying a football through a goal made out of jumpers and bicycles. I don’t mean to get whimsical, but I don’t think I could do that now.

For one thing, that park’s miles away.

Anyway, cool-bright it is - perhaps as a reminder that I can be both those things, even when driving. I’d certainly like a mix of coolness and brightness, rather than to be baking, or blue. I’ll leave that to those steaming lorry drivers.