Heat exposure

Hot weather brings us face to face to how we feel, whether we like it or not.

It’s only 7am but the nasturtiums have given up, bowing their heads in submission. Even the water in the hose emerges reluctantly, hot and disinterested.

Hauling myself back into the house, I glance at the huge blue cool mat I bought for Daisy a few years ago when, worried that she had heatstroke, I took her to the emergency vets and paid £180 to be told that she was ‘probably just feeling a bit warm.’

Daisy, is lying out flat on the wooden floor, next to the cool mat.

In the kitchen, I open the fridge door and stand staring at the shelves.

It feels too early for cheese, and the turnips from two consecutive weeks veg boxes are sitting in the salad tray at the bottom, pushed behind some courgettes so that I don’t have to think about how to use them or feel bad that I haven’t.

This week, I have found myself staring blankly into the fridge frequently, relieved by the brief cool air and using it in the same way that smokers use a cigarette, for punctuation.

I’m so hot, everything is commas and semi-colons, when all I long for is a full-stop.

I once had a client who couldn’t sit in silence because he became aware of the ticking clock in my room. He said it became impossible to ignore how his life was passing him by while he refused to allow himself to live it.

Serving a largely self-imposed penance for a past that evoked feelings of guilt so powerful that much of his time was spent hopelessly trying to escape from himself.

‘Do you ever just go for a walk?’ I asked once.

‘Only if I have to get somewhere.’

In the evening, barely cooler at all, Martin is round for dinner and we’re sitting outside wondering if the zoom lens on my camera is powerful enough to take a reasonable picture of the moon.

It isn’t, so we eat ice-cream and stare into the wilderness.

‘Your garden reminds me of your mum’s,’ he says, a piece of chocolate falling onto his trousers.

‘Because it’s so overgrown and untidy?’

‘I liked your mum’s garden. Do you ever cut any of these shrubs back?’

I thought about it for a moment, silently acknowledging that it’s rare for me to prune anything, preferring instead to let it run wild, like my mother did.

Clutter and chaos surrounded her, and it used to infuriate me. I assumed she was just disorganised but maybe it helped her avoid feelings she’d rather not face.

The stifling heat this week reminded me of the long hot summer in 1976.

On a visit to my uncle that year, a TV repair man, I managed to convince my mother to buy a second hand colour television from him, our first.

There was nothing green anywhere that summer, but at least I could finally see the red cricket ball on TV as I watched England predictably beaten by the West Indies.

Other days were spent playing in the garden between the apple tree and the plum tree that would, without fail, produce one solitary plum every August.

The wonder of my childhood garden, and the way my mother gave it space to grow, was that its unruly order invited perpetual exploration.

Long and narrow, winding its way towards the embankment and the railway line below, it held a mystery that drew you in.

I knew it wouldn’t take me anywhere but then, not everything needs to.

That’s me. I imagine the photo was taken from such a distance because the garden is infinitely more interesting than me as a large baby.

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That’s all for this week. Thanks for being here, I appreciate you.