Swatch

I'd like a chaise longue covered in

moorhen's foot green velvet.

In the detail

We hotfooted it up to the Lake District for two days

in search of mizzle, lowering clouds and cool temperatures,

reliably on offer on previous occasions as I remembered.

Instead, we found a fair facsimile of the weather 

we've been having down South.

Normally so very welcome.

Fortunately we also found the holiday home of one man's dreams:

Blackwell overlooking Windermere,

an Arts & Crafts house,

designed by MH Baillie Scott

for Sir Edward Holt and his family.

Every detail was exquisitely crafted,

and preserved intact thanks to years used as a girl's school,

with boards put up to protect the original features.

Tiles by William de Morgan.

As much as I marvelled at the

skill and workmanship on display throughout a house

where no expense was spared

I was also bowled over by the precision

of the dry stone wall builders

seen everywhere on our walks.

Torpor

Just as I no longer believe that we will ever emerge from under the scaffolding,

our roofers having abandoned us for unfathomable reasons of their own,

I also no longer believe that there will be an end to blue skies and stifling heat.

In reality there can only be the briefest interlude of 'perfect' summer weather.

It is forecast and eagerly anticipated.

It arrives and is greeted with joy, and plans for a picnic,

then the doubts set in.

Will it last?

Will it last until important outdoor event x?

Then it does last and the heat builds.

New doubts perturb us.

It is too dry. Reservoirs will empty.

Farmers are worried.

What are those sheep eating

down there on the brown marshes?

My fig tree has lost its leaves.

How do they survive in Greece?

A hose pipe ban is inevitable.

It is too hot to sleep at night.

People behave oddly in the street outside at 2am.

It is too hot to go walking at midday.

I fall asleep instead.

I haven't put enough factor 50 on.

The new baby will overheat.

Linen is scratchy and doesn't look good corrugated around my waist.

Somehow the perfect endless summer of our winter dreams

has played a trick on us.

Two weeks is quite enough as long as it covers

important outdoor event x.

22C is just nice as long as there isn't a brisk NE wind.

This. This is just taking a good thing too far.