These are the summer deeps.
The summer deeps are different from deep summer, which refers specifically to a stretch of time (the end of July to the end of August). The summer deeps really refer to a 'classic' summer - days and days of blazing heat, of waking up in the morning and tasting that metallic air, glimpsing the blue sky between the curtains from (as in my case) the mattress on the floor.
There are other symptoms of the summer deeps though - notable a feeling of tropical darkness. This is a rather vague symptom, and really can only be felt truly at night (though the air of some tangled jungle may well last through the day). As night falls one can almost see huge trees outlined against the sunsetty sky, hear the calls of monstrous insects from carnivorous undergrowth. One could get lost here. Welcome to the summer deeps.
One thing the summer deeps have in common with deep summer is that feeling that no other season could possible exist. Spring and autumn seem a lifetime away, and winter might as well be a fairy-tale, (though as I get older the thought of winter comes with a shiver of concern - another year gone, another year wasted, another year closer to death).
Em is down for the weekend. She sits next to me on the sofa. I can hear the sound of workmen in the mews below, and the sky (seen over the roofs of the flats opposite) is indeed a pale, cloudless blue.
A classic sky of the summer deeps.
