Every year, when the days start to heat up, it feels like a liberation that some strange part of me worries might never come. But it’s here now, as inevitable as any season. May turns into June with barely a second thought. The wind swings around to the south, blowing hot from foreign lands. It rises, too, tickling the tops of trees but bringing no relief to those on the ground under the scorching sun.

Temperatures drift inexorably towards the thirties. The gorse flowers have faded and gone, passing their torch to the buttercups in the meadows and the cow parsley that crowds every hedgerow and riverbank.

Winter and Spring have had their day. Now it is time for Summer; king of seasons, our season. It is time for deep blue skies and endless green fields. It is time for the smell of barbecues and the salty sea. It is time for the sound of parched heath underfoot and the calls of swallows in the cool evening air.

It is time to run, and play, and swim, and laugh, and dance between the hot sand and the blazing sky.

Summer is here.