In honour of my mini-break, this meditation on holidays

Generally, we mean Christmas and New Year when we refer to the holiday season. But shouldn’t summer  have that label?

Reader, I went on a mini-break.

I didn’t go far.

I didn’t go for long.

And I didn’t stop working.

Confused? Don’t be. All that happened was I took summer as my guide to a lighter, brighter way of being, working marginally less than usual and eating more meals out in the garden.

As a summer-loving journalist recently wrote in a New York Times newsletter: “Summer self is self-indulgent; fall self is all determination. Summer self puts things off and fall self gets things done”. (Fall, of course, is the American way of describing autumn’s habitual leaf fall.)

So yes, I allowed myself to be slightly self-indulgent, putting things off (just a little), all while I stared at the Alstroemeria, which has formed great big clumps in just a couple years and even allowed me to gift pots of it to friends.

It’s fitting that I write this on August 31, supposedly the last few hours of summer. On August 31, those of us heritage tomato growers caught short by this year’s cold and wet season, should technically abandon hope. The wisdom goes that this year, there is no hope of getting your own Cherokee Purple to savour, right off your tomato plant. They’re not wrong but there is both joy and audacity in hoping for a miracle.

But tomato-grower or not, August 31 technically means a reset – back to school or work. On to soups, stews and chilli. And into jumpers and boots.

But what if you never did stop work in the summer? And what if you did cook and eat the occasional clear chicken consommé? And what if you weathered the British summer’s propensity to cold, windy, rainy days with a cotton cardigan and Wellington boots?

I’d say you’re doubly ready for autumn, whenever it sets in, for real or in the calendar’s turning pages.