I know it’s really summer when tennis balls start being whacked about with serious intent. We can hear the thwack thwack in our garden, nets being cleared by millimetres at high speed. Meads tennis club at the end of our road provides additional practice grass courts for competitors in the Eastbourne Open. We pause on our way to a fundraising garden party to watch. That’s another indication of summer: fundraisers. Those and the abundance of music in the small surrounding villages.
We hold a party on our brand new terrace. It’s the hottest day of the year so far – really baking – so we fetch the gazebo out of the roof space to provide some shade. I don’t know why it is, when we’re usually so nice to each other, that Adrian and I almost come to blows over putting up a gazebo. It’s one of those concertina types that shrink back into something like an H G Wells’ alien whenever you let go of a leg. ‘Pull that leg!’ ‘I can’t; you’re holding the wrong bit!’ ‘You’re not doing it right!’ ‘It’s got to go there, not there!’ etc etc.
Finally, it’s up, the party gets underway and all is well. Afterwards, once the clearing up is finished, we head to the beach for a swim. It helps enormously with both the heat and the after-party slump.
Adrian isn’t much into watching tennis, so I head down the road on my own. I pick the one day of the week when it isn’t blowing a hoolie. After the bright still day of our party, the wind sets in and doesn’t let up for a week. I watch two great doubles matches and a disappointing men’s single, but all the while, we can hear the crowd on Centre Court as the young Australian, Maya Joint, beats Emma Radacanu. We don’t need to check the score; the collective ‘Oh’s of the crowd say it all. Joint eventually wins the tournament in a nail biting tie break against Alexandra Eata. It’s one of those matches that neither player deserves to lose.
The wind dies away and we finish the week with a tramp on the Downs and a choral concert in the village of Berwick. The little Saxon church with its rather bright contemporary murals is one of those rare creatures: a church that has had loads of money thrown into its restoration and modernisation. The clear glass in many of its mullioned windows, lets in the light and views of the tree lined churchyard. It makes the perfect setting for the sixteen strong choir. They sing a variety of folk and religious songs – with some very pleasing harmonies – while birdsong occasionally drifts in through the open doors. After the concert, we walk along a lane in the evening sun, admiring a row of multicoloured hollyhocks fostered by some community minded resident. I notice the grass of the churchyard and neighbouring field is turning brown from lack of rain. At home, we take a drink out onto the terrace. A blackbird runs through his repertoire. The ‘past’ might be ‘another country’, but so too is the British summer. Sipping white wine in the warmth of our garden, I can barely imagine the far away world of winter.
