Sugar Bag Blue

Jo Blogs...

This week I saw a roll of grass on Wandsworth Common, like the one from Monets' studies of sunlight, a giant swiss roll - a sign of the height of summer in the countryside -  the heady finale to mowing the fields, and a sign of the season at its peak.

 We used to gather the hay bales in by hand where I grew up – for £2 per hour, gruelling, sweaty labour that seemed never ending (I puked after an hour on my first days work, the first one I picked up was unfeasibly heavy and I thought my fingers would be cut off by the friction of the nylon bale  string, but got quickly used to it, and became very proud of my calloused palms.)

But gradually we would gradually clear all the fields, and would survey how many stacks we had created by hand, from where we rested on top of a hay lorry as the sun went down. The smell was thick and intense, the heat from the sweating, spikey bale-stacks would rise up through your clothes; the taste of the ears which we chewed into a bready gum – sensations that to me gather into an essence of a particular  time of year; the season had an end, we were part of it, and were welded to the landscape.

  How do we know, in the big city, with its unchanging all-year face, how do we know were we are in the year?

 When nature is in charge, the signs are that particular flowers will come out, the hedgerows would be thicker, birdcries alter, the smells different, even the light and the sky would change or the harvest would end, or begin – even though the harvest festivals that i took part in as a child seemed to be about gathering tinned goods in the corner of the school room. Across the country, there would be a strange celebration whose origins are obscure,  cheese rolling, or pig slapping or whatever, but fimly based in the processes of the seasons and used as markers to say 'thakyou' for what we have, or to take a break from the work we did bringing home the bacon and preparing us that there is now another phase to come; maybe we are basically forgetful creatures that need reminding by actually doing something odd and in public that marks the end of one phase and inevitably, the start of another. 

(cheese-roling in Gloucestershire, 4th June.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dtvG9XDtjv4

(kent...)

(Devon Pixies)

(burning barrels, Ottery St. Mary, Devon)

I suppose this comes to mind as I was wondering what the hell happened to our seasons – is this the drowning season, or the boiling Indian summer.

Short of there being snowdrifts (and even that wasn’t very reliable – didn’t we get tons last year and then, untimely bits this year.)
 I am looking for: flowers and maybe a few showers, maybe some lambs
 –spring;
sunbathing, dry grass and blue skies
 – summer;
 blowing leaves, conkers, fires burning
 – autumn;

 and then snow, jumpers, dark evenings
 – winter.

So Wandsworth Common is the best hope for these signs, (and we are so lucky in the area that surrounds Tickled Pink and Sugarbag Blue that nature is not completed held at bay.) but I guess what we have inside our homes are our internal reminders of the seasons, our personal greenery.

Particularly with children in a house its great to map out where we are with decorations -Easter stuff, Halloween, bonfire night – in summer, bright coloured drinking cups and bowls, scarfs and clothes reflecting the shades of where we feel we are in the year, even though we cant see nature because we are surrounded by concrete, or nature is not playing by the rules.

 We want patterns that speak of holidays, beach huts and seagulls, sail boats, and garden parties. Jewellery that goes well with suntanned skin, and white cloth.

(we have a range of delicate silver and gold summer jewellery

-this summers' best-sellers!!

glossy brightly coloured enamel bangles - mm! great summer

kit, lovely with a tan.                  

spotty dotty summer scarves!