Drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits on the shingle as the sun went down on the Norfolk coast last week I was hard pushed to believe the summer was all over. Now I am in my miniscule studio over looking 8 lines of train track and wedged between Paddington station and the West Way and I am so glad of the memories.
A month off in August should be standard issue in this country as it is in Europe. The benefits to health and happiness and family life would far outweigh any loss of earnings to the country, and would put plenty in the bank in terms of feeling good in the long lean times of winter. I also believe it would cut the divorce rate as families re-learn the forgotten art of being together.
I know it has not been so great this summer in some parts of Britain as far as the weather goes, so much so that I know of a family in Cornwall who are selling their house unable to bear another trip to Padstow in the rain. But the weather isn’t the only thing – it’s the act of being away from the timetables of real life, the languorous days doing not much at all, a desultory picnic of sausage rolls and tomatoes in the garden and a game of Racing Demons but no need to achieve anything really.
Fruit picking has been the height of my ambitions, and I am at the moment in search of a forgotten recipe for a polenta and blackberry cake I made a couple of years ago. Why have I forgotten how to do it when I was so obsessed with it that other September not especially long ago?
Among my friends this summer I have noticed a similarly homespun approach to pleasure and leisure, we have whiled away hours making wasp traps out of hollow apples or jars filled with water and jam (resulted in a scene worthy of the Chapman brothers most graphic war pieces) and culminating in the joy of the car boot sale last weekend. We took our dusty and warped record collection and some clothes and came home with four pairs of socks, more sausage rolls and a small oil painting. We still had no money, but for a brief moment during the morning we had achieved something like £30. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the early morning sun shine as we drove to the seaside pitch, and the impressive Del Boy streak in my daughter and her two friends who managed to sell everything they were in charge of with a stream of coaxing patter.
My miniscule studio is making me think about the Miniscule of Sound, the worlds smallest night club. Apparently this tiny flat pack boite de nuit appears everywhere from China to Trafalgar Square and has all the usual features – bouncers, podium dancers and a queue as well as red carpet and VIP treatment for some. It has been in trouble with the vast and overwhelming Ministry of Sound, but emerged full of insouciance to carry one. We have to go dancing, it’s the only way to keep warm this winter, and I predict a rush on mini night clubs. www.minisculeofsound.com
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