On not rushing summer

Sometimes, in a strange way, it’s worth going through a tough time just to get to the point where you feel it lifting isn’t it? I’ve had a rush of joy returning this week and so I’ve been deliberately savouring every small thing and we’ve had glorious sunshine to boot. This is my last post for a little while, I’m going to take a break from blogging while I get though my new season project work. When I come back I might try something a bit different but I’ll tell you about that further down. For now, let’s talk about not rushing summer… because there isn’t long left.

I’m talking about not rushing summer specifically to those in the south because as you know we were down there last weekend and it was interesting. The difference between the experience of summer between the two halves of the country has to be a phenomenon. I think the divide is quite high up geographically, somewhere around Crewe maybe but it’s huge. We set off for a festival last Friday night and it reminded me of driving through France with the boys when they were little. We used to put as many miles behind us as quickly as we could because we were keen to pass the Ligne Jaune – the point around Lyon where they promise that sunshine is almost guaranteed and you feel the air and the landscape changing in the space of about five miles.

The difference in the south between now and the last time we were down a month ago was startling. It’s beyond parched down there now isn’t it? There’s nothing green anywhere. The verges are completely yellow, the leaves are falling from the trees, the berries are already ripe and the dust… I’ve never seen anything like that in the UK. For us it was joyful watching the outside temperatures rising on the dashboard. We stopped overnight in Cannock and arriving at 11pm it was still a balmy 20 degrees.

The next day we carried on to Milton Keynes and when we got there at 10.30am it was already 25 degrees so it felt like stepping off a plane on holiday. I think it’s really important to talk about this because as I mentioned last week, it’s having a big effect on people’s state of mind wherever they’re living.

In the north there’s a divide between people who have always lived here and so don’t really notice and those who’ve been away and returned. For the long-term residents this summer hasn’t been particularly bad – just normal. But for anyone like us who’s lived away and come back, it’s been grinding and I know that’s a word I keep using in relation to the weather but it’s really how I feel – ground down by the disappointment of it when sunshine is less than 100 miles away.

But then there’s everyone in the south who’s been living with the heatwave for weeks. I talked to so many people at the festival and I could see that they too were ground down but in their case it was by the relentless sunshine. I couldn’t help noticing how scruffy everyone was. I’d dressed up a bit and so many women opened a conversation with me by saying something along the lines of “I don’t know how you have the energy for that.” And when I asked what they meant they said that they’d given up getting dressed weeks ago. That they’re now just throwing on one of three options that they’ve found they can bear to wear. And I’m not being rude when I say I could see and feel it everywhere. Lovely midlife women who you could just tell would normally be sparkling looked like extras from Out of Africa. So for the first time I could understand the toll that it’s taken on you down there. I had to applaud the number of women who had given up their bras though – all shapes and sizes were swaying freely to the music and it was the ultimate in rebuttal of restriction.

I can see that it’s been extraordinary for you. Everything is in a much worse state than it was when we were down a month ago. I would still swap with you though. I’m not looking forward to heading into autumn with no real warmth in my bones but at least this week we’ve had another burst of it.

So, as I’ve already alluded to it, let’s start with last weekend. For us it began on Friday morning with the middle one’s birthday. He and the youngest had plans to celebrate by camping with friends the following day but on his actual birthday he was at a bit of a loss. I always feel a bit guilty because I had all of my sons on bad dates for friends being available – two in August when everyone’s on holiday and one on 21st December when it’s full Christmas frenzy. Anyway with this one loving nothing more than a film or a piece of theatre, the obvious solution was a cinema bonanza. We went to see Spiderman in the afternoon – not my top choice but the rest of my family love to lose themselves in the Marvel world so they were happy. When it was finished, Mal headed off to the karate dojo and I took the boys for a burrito and a glass of wine… it was just about warm enough to sit outside.

Then the three of us went back to the cinema to see Toy Story 5 and I can’t tell you what a joyful wave of nostalgia swept over me. It was like whizzing back in time to school holidays fifteen years ago, watching the latest instalment of the series that we’ve been following with them since they were tiny. In fact Buzz Lightyear was the middle one’s first love. When he was two he was inseparable from him and the easy way to get him to do anything during those quarrelsome infant years was to tell him that it was what Buzz wanted!

Our car was packed outside and ready to go… filled with the promise of an empty nest weekend… sequins and dancing… but for a few hours I was overcome with the pleasure of feeling like a mum again. Sitting with them in that cinema, just as we used to, hearing them chuckle away at the daft antics of Woody and Buzz.

And so, as when they were little, it was a bit of a pull to leave them behind as we set off in our party car… but we turned the festival playlist up to full volume and I soon picked up the mood. As I said last week, we’d made a bit of a spontaneous decision to go. The festival was Electric Paradise and we’d been watching the line-up all year because it was such a good one. At one point I’d booked a hotel but we kept feeling an urge to be sensible because August and September were looking very busy so I’d cancelled.

But then it popped up on social media and the middle one was listening in as I remarked once again how good it looked. He told us we’d be stupid not to go and asked us how many more summers we thought we had left with energy for something like this – which as you know was absolutely on message for me. So we did a quick recce for accommodation, found some nearby in Bletchley and it all came together. Odyssey were opening one of the stages at 1pm and that’s why we drove more than halfway the night before, so that we wouldn’t miss a minute.

Unfortunately I have very few photos – you see it felt completely different to Boogietown which was exactly a month before. You’ll remember that Mal was still deep in grief and sadmin at that point and we made a conscious effort to give ourselves a day off from it all. And we we did – but it was still there, like smog around us.

As soon as we headed off from the hotel to Electric Paradise I could feel that life had shifted, that we, and especially Mal, were lighter. So we threw ourselves into it and I have barely any photos. Just this in the crowd, obviously entranced by somebody who was coming on – probably Sister Sledge, top of my list of favourites. Always.

I can now say that Electric Paradise is the best festival we’ve ever been to. It was a mix of classic disco with two stages that had a full day of live performances – Shalamar, Earth Wind & Fire, Cameo, UB40, Sister Sledge, Candi Staton, Rose Royce, Alison Limerick… so many others. And then there were two DJ tents. One was techno so we didn’t go there but the other had lots of our disco-house favourites, Kirollus DJ… Dimitri from Paris… Michael Gray… Armand Van Helden… The first world problem was the number of timetable clashes with fabulous acts all performing at the same time so we had to either choose or split the sets. By the end of the day we’d done just under 40,000 steps racing from one place to another.

We were cows in clover. I can’t remember the last time I had a day that was just so packed with multiple layers of joy for ten hours. We met so many wonderful people young and old, all so friendly. Here’s one of my new best midlife friends – she’d hoisted me up so that we could dance (a bit precariously) up above the crowd for the last track from Dimitri from Paris.

And that’s what festivals are for, meeting new people, having great conversations with them and dancing the night away, knowing that there’s no commitment, you’ll never see each other again but in that moment you’re sharing exactly the same intensity of freedom and joy.

You’ll have noticed that I wore sequinned trousers because the forecast said it was going to be around 25 degrees – the perfect temperature. It wasn’t, it was a lot hotter. I was fine but they were a great conversation starter as people came over to ask how I was coping!

Once again I want to say something about the power of women but not just the artists this time, also the people in the crowd. It was just so good to see so many midlifers letting their hair down, not being sensible or cautious but living that day in the sunshine to the full, in complete togetherness. I have to take a moment to honour the female artists too though. Candi Staton at 86 – belting out ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ (in 32 degree heat).

EIGHTY SIX!

I’ve seen Sister Sledge a few times and nobody works a crowd like Kathy but this was her best performance yet at 67. In a pink sequinned suit and still in 32 degree heat.

SIXTY SEVEN!

Gwen Dickey performing ‘Wishing On A Star’ from a chair – she had a spinal injury falling from a ladder which has left her unable to walk. But she’s still out there, still doing it at 72

SEVENTY TWO!

And my final midlife icon of the day was Grace Jones. She was on another level – completely bonkers, singing with her Jamaican chew stick in her mouth – and just such a diva at 78. She came out in a black tuxedo suit, after a while she threw the jacket off to reveal a bustier and then she took the trousers off too. Each song saw a different piece of headgear and she was captivating. Just look at her beautiful chutzpah.

SEVENTY EIGHT!

For half of the time, as she was prowling across the stage she wasn’t just singing, she was hula hooping in high heels as well!

These women prove that if we’re lucky enough to stay well, then ageing is a state of mind.

I was chatting to some others who came to sit on the floor with me while we waited for our menfolk to bring drinks. One of them looked at my sequinned trousers which were absolutely covered in dust and said “maybe we should’ve all brought camping chairs.” And we all said the same thing at the same time…

“No! Don’t let the old woman in.” By which, of course, we meant the crabby version of ourselves that starts telling us we can’t… we shouldn’t… we mustn’t.

“Why have you gone all Churchillian?” I hear you asking. Because as always we decided to fill the next day with a bit of culture before heading back home. I couldn’t have stayed in Bletchley without going to Bletchley Park, the secret home of World War II’s codebreakers. I’ve said before that as my parents were older, I was brought up very much in the shadow of that war. My dad was in the RAF’s Bomber Command and it remained such a big part of his life for the rest of his days that I almost feel as if I was alive in 1945 too, so anything related to it fascinates me.

Dress; Shoes

I’m short on time so I can’t write as much as I’d like to today. I’ll admit that Bletchely Park wasn’t as interesting as I’d expected. There are various code-breaking huts to tour around but the displays are quite repetitive. I’ve often imagined that if I’d been alive during the war with my degree in languages, I’d have gone to Bletchley Park and had a rip-roaring time. The big thing that comes over from the collected memories though is that it was a very tedious job. The reason for that is that you had one role – either to transcribe the message you heard over the airwaves… or translate it… or analyse the content… or decide where it should be sent next. Because you didn’t see the whole thing through, you never had any sense of completion or even understanding of your mission. Everybody knew they were doing important war work but not quite what. And of course because of the Official Secrets Act you couldn’t chat about it with your colleagues or anyone else.

The collective impact of what they did there though was huge. One thing that I had to research after we left was what the opposing German set-up was. Although they had intelligence, it was all done in different departments in buildings that were on different sites. Apparently the various factions were also quite competitive and so they didn’t share their intelligence. By contrast, the information the Allies had from Bletchley Park was much more joined up, for example enabling us to land in exactly the right places for D Day… and from there the war went on to be won.

I’ll stop now because I know I can get very nerdy about these things. I just want to record the fact that Bletchley Park brought me closer to my grandfather who died when I was four. I remember him as a scary man who lived with what we would now call PTSD (then known as shell shock) after being in the trenches in WWI. It wasn’t surprising that he transferred to the Navy for WWII and worked in the newly emerging role of Senior Radio Operator.

I’ve read his letters home to my mum who was boarding at school and there was never very much in them other than the odd description of ‘Ceylon’, Singapore and other far off places. Instead he sent her long and complicated maths problems that he insisted she returned to him for marking. It’s meant that I’ve always thought he must have had a bit of a soft job. Bletchley Park helped me to understand that his radio work was pioneering and top secret. I wonder if some of his lifelong repressed anger lay in never being able to tell anyone just how much he did. I have a new admiration for him now.

So is Bletchley Park worth a visit? On balance I’d say yes but it won’t take you more than two or three hours. It’s quite expensive for what it is – about £28 pp. I do salute the people who worked there though, especially the many, many women who lived in digs and clearly weren’t as intellectually fulfilled by the work as I’d always imagined. And they didn’t get very much thanks or praise for a very long time afterwards, many of them had died by the time their efforts were recognised. Most of them, like my grandfather, went to their graves still holding to the Official Secrets Act and so even their families had no idea of what they gave up for their country’s future.

I’m running out of time and I really wanted to tell you more about this but as it’s my last chance to include it, I’m just going to have to slip it in. After our Boogietown day last month we went to Tate Modern really for the Frida Kahlo exhibition. It’s called Frida – her legacy and my goodness it was a disappointment. It has a small collection of Frida’s works and artefacts but really it’s about the artists who have been inspired by her over the years so there are lots and lots of interpretations of her work. If you’re a Frida scholar it will be interesting but otherwise it’s a bit like watching a bad film of a great book.

However, the other exhibition that we wanted to see while we were there was Tracey Emin’s A Second Life. It’s been on for a while so it finishes on 31st August but if you can get there, do. It’s the most intimate and eviscerating story of her life told through her words, pictures, videos and all of the other types of media that she likes to work in. It tells of her troubled childhood, her rape, her abortion, her confusion about having a child… of the many times she’s been abused or had her heart shattered. Of her diagnosis with cancer, her operations that have left her with a catheter and colostomy bag. And her newfound hope as a midlife woman and her determination that this isn’t the end, it’s her part two.

I feel we all should see it in recognition of the very different challenges that many, many women have faced by the time they reach midlife. It’s proof of how strong we can be. And it shows that there’s always hope if we open ourselves up to it. We were both incredibly moved by it and, at the end, uplifted. Whether you like her art or not, go and feel how strong life’s pulse can be.

Yesterday was the youngest’s birthday, the first time that we’ve had him to ourselves on his big day since he was 17 because after that, he always had his girlfriend in the mix. All of his friends had headed off to the Boomtown festival but underground electronic music isn’t his scene so like his brother, he was at a bit of a loss. His idea of a great day out will always be heading into The Lakes so we went up into The Borrowdale Oakwods which are one of England’s last remaining pieces of temperate rainforest. A walk with him is never simple, it involved scaling the largest boulderstone in the world…

And crossing a river in newly pedicured, very tender soled feet which the boy found hilarious, sending a video of my small meltdown to his brothers.

Once again it was precious to have that time on the hottest day we’ve had all year. We ended with the four of us going to his favourite pub quiz where we didn’t do very well… but there was a whole section on Motocross for goodness sake!

And so now I’m saying goodbye for a little while. As I’ve mentioned, I have to focus on a new season project. I’m also travelling around almost non-stop from next week until the beginning of October… and then pretty much again until December. So I’m giving myself a couple of weeks away from writing while I get into the swing of it all.

When I asked you last week to let me know if you’d been having technical problems, the response was quite overwhelming. It made me think about something I’ve been pondering over for a while.

You see it gets more and more expensive to keep this blog going. It also gets harder and harder to keep the site secure but then the anti-hacking measures conflict with the plug-ins we use as well as the email software and it takes Mal a whole Friday night to unravel it all when he gets back from the dojo.

So, I’m wondering about moving over to Substack. It wouldn’t affect you other than you’d need to look somewhere else for my posts. I set up a Substack holding page a year ago. I haven’t touched it since then but when I looked this week there were over 3000 followers so I think some of you may have found me there already. Substack is a place purely for writers, it isn’t a social media platform. In theory it would take a lot of my headaches away – it would reduce my costs and it would be easier for you to comment and chat to each other there. The only restriction is a creative one so there wouldn’t be pretty Christmas graphics or any of the other little bells and whistles that Mal works in.

So, I need to know what you think. When I return from my break, I’ll still be here on the blog while I decide what to do but I’m thinking of putting together a very practical ‘how to define your personal style’ series on Substack in September. So if you’d like to read those posts, all you need to do now is go to my newsletter there which is called The Midst and subscribe (there’s no charge). Once you’ve signed up, if I post a new piece it will pop into your email Inbox.

In the meantime can you let me know here if you’d be happy to access Midlifechic in a new way.

My next post here will be on 4th September so in the meantime I hope you won’t be rushing summer. I’ll be on Instagram now and then while I’m moving around and I hope to see you back here at the beginning of next month, as well as some of you in the flesh in Bristol next Friday – I can’t wait!

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