Heatwaves in England do funny things. When we planned our yard to look tropical we never expected it to be tropical. But here it is July 2026 requiring not one, but two sunshades. And for it to be unusable at some parts of the day.
Yesterday we had our warmest ever bob, the sea temperature was over 19 degrees in Tranquility Bay. For the first time ever, Ice cream was the post bob refreshment.
Earlier in the week a trip to the library has an unexpected twist.
A near naked man decided to expose himself to me. Really quite unnecessary and not what anyone needs to see on the way to the library or anywhere for that matter.
July 1st 2026. May and June have rushed by in a way that January and February never do. Every aspect of the early part of the first day of July in 2026 is soft, the colours are soft, the sea is soft, and there was a soft but nippy breeze.
Even the tide, gently falling, made soft sounds on the rocks. A gentle farewell as the sea pulls away from coastline. Like the soft hug of a temporary parting. I wonder how the rest of July will progress.
Another day another heatwave. Lola and I were up early, to achieve plenty of cooler weather walking and domestica. Freeing up the hotter hours for chatter and chilling. A meeting in the morning required not one but two iced coffees. Then there was an art attack. Not of the Coronary variety. ( I may be from Essex, but I do not drop my aitches, although curiously we do pronounce aitch as haitch)
An actual art attack, when a piece of original art fell off the wall and landed noisily between myself and my gentleman companion. Cool, even in a heatwave we did not skip a beat. Exchanging funny anecdotes is not the time for drama of the arty sort.
Swimming was the antidote to both the heat and art attacks.
Firestone Bay
Less people than the day before, so no need to create a postcard image to protect the identity of beach goers. No big boats to watch. Just a really fast lifeboat. So fast I missed it twice.
And a cute sailing boat, the sailing boat did, however, need the postcard effect because the photo was so bad.
To create the postcard I used the colours of the rocks of Firestone Bay to fill in all the detail lost by very bright sunlight.
The rock of Firestone Bay through Polaroid Sunglasses
Et Voilà
Sailing in Firestone Bay
Not all heatwave days are the same even in the exact same location. Unexpected things always add a different texture to a day.
The bonus of yesterday, was meeting so many people, unexpectedly, for random conversations whilst we were all dodging the effects of overheating.
Overnight we had huge electric storms. The heatwave may be over, we are back to greige, how very drear!
I make no apology for nattering on about the spectacular sunset we were able to watch, from our van on Friday night. The serendipitous luck of making a late decision to overnight camp in a carpark, overlooking a beach that we usually only ever visit in the Winter and Spring. Just to be close to Truro for Saturday morning. I am not sure what the correct words are, but being able to sit and read our books and glance up every now and then to watch the day melt into dusk and then finally put on a spectacular finale as the sun dived below the horizon was such a glorious experience. Other people ebbed and flowed around us as the day shapeshifted. We arrived to a full carpark at the moment when young families need to leave the beach and start the nighttime routine and beach bar dwellers are not quite ready to start the night. Half an hour sitting in the van with an ugly view of the toilet block was rewarded with the perfect spot becoming available,overlooking the whole beach with a direct view of a small stream running to the sea.
After an hour or so I began to wonder if we might be in the prime spot for the sun setting. Our evening was filled with dog walks and a bar visit. The car park filled up again with older families. Truculent early teenagers and their weary parents attempting a family holiday and much older teenagers driving their first cars. All ages of people anxious to see the sunset from the beach. Zimmer frames and walking sticks replacing pushchairs and gentle hand holding on the sand. ‘Children’ in their sixties clutching the arms of frail elderly people needing to do a sunset with much loved people who are closer to their own sunset than anyone wants to think about.
The sun did not let anyone down.
Least of all us,who had hoped for a stream of fire, and got it.
But how to depict the whole cycle of the past 4 hours.
For four years the bobbers have celebrated both Summer and Winter Solstices by dipping at sunrise and sunset. Summer takes more dedication with early and late starts. Winter takes more grit because the weather is disgusting and the water is very cold. Summer has not always been kind to us but in our collective memory the event is always magical. These two images of the early morning dip and the evening dip are entirely fake. Created by stitching three actual magical dips together. The location is accurate, as are the conditions and the swimmers. But they never actually occurred all at the same time in the same place so perfectly.
But in our recollections Solstice swims are magical. And I have the photographs to prove that.
Summer Solstice Double Dipping P.M
May Summer wrap her arms around you whilst the sun gently warms your soul.
Happy Solstice, 4:30 AM and the beach was quiet. Half an hour later and this whole beach was full of people who had had a fabulous early morning swim. Many of us will be back at 9:30 pm for the sunset swim. This was the warmest swim I have done since last summer.
Yesterday I hit peak procrastination. I had a painting to finish for an August exhibition I had every intention of spending the day on it but somehow was sidetracked by a painting that has waited nearly 10 years to be finished. The painting was for a specific place in the actual Old Mortuary, It was painted to hang in the stairwell and was not quite finished when our lovely builders hung it before I had put the finishing touches. It was in such an awkward place I never bothered to take it down to finish. Then we moved house and it found a new home. All the time hanging quite happily in its non finished state. I have no idea why yesterday became the day it was finished. I just whipped it off the wall and set about finishing it. Procrastination at its finest.
Summer seemed to get out of bed at a reasonable time of day this morning. August often disappoints, the good days outnumbered by those that do not quite hit the spot.
As Bilbo Baggins says to Gandalph in Lord of the Rings.
“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
Sun and warmth are the butter of summer and they have been so thinly spread, recently, that summer feels very similar to Mr Baggins bread. Nothing like as tasty and comforting as summers should. I fear arriving early on the morning of 24th of August is too late. A little autumn chill is hiding in the long shadows of this morning.
I was grateful that this location was a dog walk this morning and that I could keep my clothes on. Early morning swimmers braved the same waters that I dipped in last night. There is a biting edge when you submerge, the water temperature is dropping, almost a whole degree in a day yesterday. Hot drinks are required again after a swim, shocking behaviour, August is the time for iced latte not hot chocolate!
So August, one week to go, time to show us some of the warm stuff …
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