midsummer and the long evenings

2026 · 07

The evenings have gone so long we keep getting caught out by the clock. You look up sure it must be nearly dark and it's still bright and gold and hasn't even started thinking about it.

We've started taking tea outside after dinner, in the last of the light. Two mugs, the two chairs dragged over to the good spot where the wall still holds a bit of the day's warmth. M. brings a blanket out every time out of habit and we haven't once needed it. We sit and mostly don't talk. Sometimes M. reads and I just watch the sky do its slow thing. It's one of the best parts of my week.

There's a blackbird that sings off the same aerial every one of these evenings, right up until it's properly dark, for no audience at all. I've started listening out for it. When it finally packs in, that's usually our cue to take the mugs inside.

The park on the walk earlier was that heavy full midsummer green, everything at its fullest just before it starts, without you noticing, to tip the other way. The path by the water had people out late, dogs, a couple falling off a skateboard and laughing about it.

M. said the other evening that if you could only keep one time of year, this would be the one. I said I'd want the first proper cold clear morning of autumn as well, and we had a mild, pointless argument about it that neither of us was trying to win. Then the blackbird stopped and we went in.