Long Hot Summer

Here in the UK, as in much of the Northern Hemisphere, it has been an exceptionally long, hot, and dry summer so far. We've had our share of wildfires, too (fires on dried-out, peaty moors are especially difficult to extinguish, once started) but have thankfully escaped the catastrophic loss of life and property we have seen elsewhere: I sincerely hope none of you have been affected by this.

For once, I have even bothered to dig out and wear my shorts and sandals, a foolhardy act which would normally guarantee a break in the weather. Not this year, however; maybe writing about my shorts and sandals will bring some welcome relief, at least in the form of rain. Probably the nearest comparison would be 1976, memorably the year I endured my university final exams, clad in the regulation, ridiculous "subfusc": for men, a dark suit, white shirt, white elasticated bow-tie, black shoes, plus academic cap and gown [1]. If I recall correctly, for English Language & Literature finalists that year there were two three-hour exams on Thursday, two on Friday, one on Saturday morning, two on Monday, and another one on Tuesday. By the end of it, I don't think anybody cared about the actual result; finally to be free to laze in or out of the sun in minimal, non-fusc clothing was reward enough. School was finally out. For ever.

One of my regular walks in Southampton takes me through the municipal Sports Ground, which lies below the municipal Golf Course, in a swampy hollow of sand and gravel riddled with underground streams and seasonal springs. On an autumn morning, the mists there can be spectacularly all-enveloping. At the moment, however, even this damp spot resembles the Dordogne, with yellowed, straw-like grass baking under harsh sunlight. As I looked across it from an elevated spot, I could see new herringbone-patterned markings across the football pitches, and was speculating what strange new game the pitches could have been marked-up for, until I realised that the overlay of lines actually marks the course of underground drainage pipes, installed to keep the pitches playably dry in winter. All around the country, "crop marks" like these are revealing sub-surface features of varying antiquity, from unsuspected Neolithic henges to Tudor garden layouts; it's the traditional archaeological bonus of a dry summer. The trees, of course, stay green, with their deeper roots, but at grass level it's not deeper roots but the differential presence of moisture over vanished banks and ditches and buried walls and floors that parches some grass into golden straw and allows other grass to remain relatively green, revealing the hidden inscriptions of history below the level turf like invisible ink over a candle flame.

1. For women, the garb was / is similar. However, one of my friends, lacking a suitable pair of black shoes (indeed, much by way of shoes at all), painted her feet black. No-one seems to have noticed or, if they did, chose not to make a fuss about it.