“Your everlasting summer you can see it fading fast,” sang Donald Fagen, at the start of the Steely Dan classic Reelin’ In The Years and I can definitely see what I was beginning to think of as my everlasting summer fading fast, too. It not only looks like autumn now, it feels like it; mainly because it literally is.
It’s the same every year. From April or May, I hunt around for my shorts and put away my winter clothes, often prematurely, based on wishful thinking, but it makes me feel better about brighter days to come, even if I am actually freezing my balls off. Sooner or later, I think, I will not look a complete idiot going around Aldi, hopelessly underdressed but then again, I honestly don’t give a toss what other people think.
After a week away in the sun, I somehow returned to Old Blighty expecting the remnants of the British summer to still be with us. When I go abroad in the late spring, summer and early autumn months, I never wear or even take trousers and jeans. I take a chance that things will still be warm enough for me to cope for a few weeks longer and so it was this time.
I did go to a gig last Friday night and finally gave in and put a pair of trousers on. It was a touch and go decision and in truth the right one. When I set out from home it was warm enough. By the time I arrived at the venue, there was a distinct chill in the air. I can still get by at home for most of the time with shorts and T shirts, but some evenings I am starting to feel I am fooling myself.
In order to put off the inevitable jogger and jean wearing, I have taken the decision to wear socks indoors. Socks and shorts, under any circumstances, look absurd. It performs its intended function of keeping me warm enough but when someone comes to the door, like the post person (I know, I know), I hurriedly rip them off my feet. Not that s/he would give a toss, but that’s vanity for you. I suppose I still care enough about my appearance so as to not look an even bigger twat. However, the autumnal transition to warmer wear cannot be far away.
Not next week, though, with the temperature set to climb up to a balmy 24c by midweek, still time to cut the grass (unfortunately) and nod off under the warm sun, as I tend to do every time I sit out there in it. The week after, with the horror shows of Halloween, Bonfire Night as I still call it and the darkest time of the year, or Christmas as you may also call it, months of shivering misery lie ahead.
My everlasting summer is definitely fading fast. Somehow, it seemed to pass by when I was doing something else, like lying outside in it. Those shorts aren’t going back into hibernation just yet – what would the ladies say, after all? – but it won’t be long. The end of shorts wearing is the end of summer is the end of days is the start of winter. Roll on next summer. You can’t come soon enough.
