Summer might not be the most consistent of seasons but the way we optimistically dream it can be could still happen and I am resolute that garden time in England is still the best; as Sam Keen famously stated; “Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” The sun is up until ten, the pigeons coo from six and any refreshing alcoholic beverage is not frowned upon at any hour - because it’s summer and you’re in the garden! Halloumi, peppers, burgers, sausages, salmon - its barbeque central and everyone is a chef. Add some candles, outdoor fairy lights and some music and you got yourself a classy, grassy joint. I recommend listening to Volare by The McGuire Sisters (very late 50s, whisky chinking, lips pouting) or jazz is also good for a garden party, but as it’s your party, you’re on the decks – Dirty Diggers, For The Haters? Do it!

Summer music festivals are the ultimate garden parties - great pits of chaotic heaven and a chance to get the feathered headdress out and the tribal face paints on. Like dancing in a cauldron of musical joy, why seriously care about the dirt, what’s not to love about being on your own desert island disc?

Not only a time for garden parties, sun cream and wellington boots, summer is also the time when everyone unleashes their passions. It’s a cliché but there’s a delightful liberated feeling in the summer. Just look at Shakespeare’s consistent references to summer when discussing matters of the heart, the classic being; “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

So I implore you to think positively about our English summer regardless of the weather. If you let them, good times will be had. “Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow,” The Secret Garden Party, Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Helen Martin