DOES OLIVIA TAKE THE ELIZABETH LINE?

There’s a line in an Olivia Dean song (I know because Sammy belts it out every time the song rotates on her playlist) that goes: “The grass is greener where you water it.”

Nice, Olivia. I was thinking about it today as my colleague Andy and I worked on a project in London. It is the easiest thing in the world to wish you were somewhere else, and the hardest to cultivate your current life. And yet the harder of the two routes leads to contentment.

Contentment. Watering your own grass and not yearning for the other side of the river. Wanting for nothing more than you already have.

I need to be more thankful. Listening to podcasts on the train reminds me that there are some wealthy, powerful people out there who still have unfulfilled appetites, and are poorer and hungrier than anyone could guess. And me, on the train, wondering what brings the myriad of people into London - and how each looks like they would rather be anywhere else.

I wonder whether Olivia Dean takes the Elizabeth Line from time-to-time. I like to think so. I like to think she smiles at Slough and Burnham and West Drayton. Perhaps as the green hedgerows flicker by and the factories turn to houses, bridges, rivers, and trees, she sighs with contentment and gratitude.

LIT BY THE RAYS OF THE SETTING SUN

August is slipping towards its end. It seems to be taking the summer with it - though apparently, there is one more heatwave to come.

We went to a riverside pub last night. It was so nice to see the golden trees reflecting in the still, flat water. With the exception of a few ripples where lazy ducks had dipped, the river was like glass. The gentlest wind picked out a few russet coloured leaves and flicked the tallest branches against the rich blue of the evening sky. It was a delightful way to end the weekend.

Sammy’s gone into work today. If ever anyone says anything about teachers having a long summer holiday, I feel ready to explain.

They spend the first two weeks detoxing from the previous academic year, the middle two weeks trying not to think about it, and then the last two weeks frantically preparing for the next one. It is intense. Also… they love a WhatsApp group, even in the middle of all of that! Oh the teachers! Some of them just can’t resist it. Or, more accurately, are terrified of falling behind and have to get ahead to keep up. Ping ping ping. Sammy had to archive a lot of chats this summer.

Anyway, she’s in today, getting ready for the new year. For me it’s just another marker post to the inevitable end of one season and the start of another. Cool breezes are lovely, and the world is very pleasant out there. But autumn is most definitely in the air.

And no bad thing! We love autumn in this house! Especially Keats’s Fall, when September really shows off. And after the endless weeks of heat, it all seems more welcome than usual.

I had a ginger beer. The lady had a raspberry and rhubarb cooler. Neither of us felt like swapping. We both had chips, and a prime view of the glorious river, lit by the rays of the setting sun. I can’t think of anything better.

RAIN DANCE

Apparently it is going to rain tonight.

Clear your diaries. Half of us are going to go outside and stand in it for three minutes, and the other half are going to roll their eyes and mutter ‘typical’.

Them’s the rules, Britannia, them’s the rules.

In this nation whose conversation, culture and social bonding rituals are entirely shaped by the weather, you just have to go along with it. And it’s likely that a little cold rain after endless weeks of baking sunshine, will be as communal an event, a thing to be commented on, just as much as the partial solar eclipse we all had last week.

I went out for a walk in the park today. Cool air, grey skies, and almost white grass thinning over dry, cracked mud. It’s a picture of our summer.

I feel more hopeful today. I mean, not quite full of hope, but maybe closer.

Sigh. There’s been a tiredness this summer that has come from more than just the boiling sun - a tiredness that has made me ache for something more, something fresh and new. As so often, the change in season seems like a reflection, a painting that matches my own.

Come on then rain, I’ve got at least three minutes to get my wellies on. Down you come. 

FROM THE CRÈCHE FOR HUSBANDS

I’ve been left in the in-store Starbucks at Sainsbury’s. I think I’ve probably been doing too much moaning about the new layout, so I’ve been given this ‘treat’ while Sammy does the shopping.

The new Sainsbury’s is too bright. That’s all I’ll say about it. Oh and there are just too many words everywhere. And the aisles are too tall and too narrow. Honestly, some of them feel like the Shambles in York, looming overhangs of cereal and tea creating alleys that are just about wide enough for one and a half trolleys.

They would argue I suppose, that everything is now clearly labelled. Brilliant white screens (paper in front of a light box) blare at you from all directions, and luminous signs like ‘MEAT & DAIRY’ and ‘FOOD FOR NOW’ hang above the aisles, shouting at you, as though they ought to be in Tokyo - an effect that’s not diminished by the presence of an instant-sushi hut by the way. ‘Wok in Progress’. There’s never anyone in it whenever we go by.

Anyway, I said I wouldn’t talk about it. I’m in the Starbucks, feeling grizzly in the heat. It’s been relentless today - I am a sweaty mess, grumpy and snappy and conserving energy in the same way a colander might preserve some water.

Starbucks is grotty these days isn’t it? Sticky tables, tuneless music, plastic seats and wooden chairs. I don’t want to go on about that either. It is serving as a sort of crèche for overheating husbands, so at least it’s serving some sort of positive function.

I hope she’s alright out there with the trolley and the swirling public. I get to pay in a minute, so who knows what treats and offers the Queen of Snacks will have scooped up. Hopefully too, she hasn’t spent too long staring at the signs without her eclipse glasses on. Actually that’s quite a good shout for next time. Sunglasses at least.

TIPPING POINTS

Okay. We’ve been on holiday. Yes, the UK, where the grass is brown and the sun burns relentlessly through the lurid blue sky. I can’t even remember what rain feels like.

Do you reckon there will come a point when more people have tattoos than don’t? I’m asking because this week I wondered whether we might be there already. I’ve seen suns on elbows, tigers on legs, flowers on backs and Sanskrit on shoulders. I’ve seen dates and names and sweet phrases like ‘regret nothing’ and ‘life is sweet’ - which are really interesting things to have indelible but nevertheless, present. I’ve seen lions and eagles and places and faces, even Martin Luther King Junior, staring back at me.

I’ve not been staring. Let’s make that clear. But glancing, certainly. And whether or not Cotswold Wildlife Park, or the grounds of Blenheim Palace, or Bourton on the Water are good samples of the wider population I don’t know. But if they are, then there are a lot of tattoos out there.

A friend of mine asked me what I thought of tattoos recently. I’m always nervous about that question. All I can say is that they’re not for me, and I don’t find them attractive. But it’s okay if you do. I said I didn’t like them because they so often make a person look like they’ve been scribbled on, much like a wall in a house with unruly toddlers who’ve had unprecedented access to permanent markers. Not always! There is some fine art out there, real craftsmanship! But for me, some, perhaps most, tattoos just don’t appeal. And with something so personal and so permanent, you have to be really careful.

So are we, I wonder, at tattoo tipping point? We’re a long way from when it was just sailors, builders and prisoners. If it is true that most adults in these boiling British Isles have now had at least one inking, then I’m in the minority.

It really has been baking hot. We’ve had weeks of it. I think the weather’s about to change, but what we could really do with is a good old downpour - a humdinger storm with monsoon rains and sweeping cool breezes over the fresh earth. That’s the tipping point we need.