The uncertain weather continued during the first half of the month, ruining the plans of charities, open days, village fetes, Prime Ministerial speeches, cricket, concerts, and other flummery activities. The British weather’s main characteristic is that rain is always imminent, as John Lennon had noted. The phrase “Flaming June” implies that the month traditionally brings tropical warmth; this is unrelated to the weather but to Sir Frederic Leighton’s brilliant 1895 painting of a woman in an orange dress sleeping in the summer heat. After a couple of years in which the early summer weather seemed indeed to be flirting with a dusky Mediterranean, I suppose this return to form explains why so many Brits scarper off to the hotter parts of the world for their holidays. The second half of the month was rather better. My scientific measure of this comes from counting the number of hours Alli spends in the suntrap at the bottom of the garden, reminiscent of flaming June herself…
I have been undergoing major dental work. My jaw has not been engaging correctly and I have been biting badly ever since the rogue dentist of Hassocks removed most of my back teeth for no good reason. At least, I cannot remember the reason, except that I was fed up. Thanks to our jolly dentist in Uckfield, this is now corrected, although somehow I can no longer eat peanuts or bite my fingernails, with consequent temporary extra benefits to my health.
The shock of losing our dog Bonnie last month was softened by a simple family chat over a picnic lunch to say farewell to her since none of us had been able to do so. This was on the day before Gwen started her dream job—working full time at Battersea Dogs’ Home. I don’t believe that there is any other job in the world more ideal for her than this one, although experience may nuance this conclusion later. We are certainly not short of photos and videos of cute dogs happy but needing homes.
Gwen with rescue dog, Battersea Dog’s Home, June 2024
Meanwhile, with a weather eye on next winter’s fuel bills, I have been walking in local woodlands with Max recently and have been collecting small abandoned logs and chunks of wood, stowing them inside supermarket bags, half-worried about being challenged by a ruddy forester, especially one with an axe. A benefit of living in Europe is that collecting fallen wood on public land is mostly possible, acceptable, sustainable, and harmless. In Africa, where woodfall barely exists in woods and forests, healthy trees are cut down illegally, chopped up, and sold to those who can’t afford heating. On his first visit to Europe, an African friend was shocked at seeing piles of stacked logs in the woods. In rural France, this was how firewood was sold and distributed; the local council would send me directions to where my stère could be collected.
Alli and I separately have spent time in Burgess Hill dog-sitting Maisie. I enjoyed taking her (Maisie) out to the Ditchling field by the railway and to Broad Oaks for a run-around (albeit, sadly, on a long lead). Later, she was stung by some bees and walked awkwardly for a while – a canine version of John Wayne. Alli also dog-sat Maisie for a few days later in the month while I stayed in Uckfield with Max. Maisie’s owner Ella celebrated her hen party in Chelmsford, expertly arranged by Jessie, then went off to Cyprus to join fiance Sam for the wedding of their imminent best man. Once that was over, they joined Jessie and Jurrat at the Foo Fighters concert at the London Stadium. A day or so later, she and Sam were could be found in Glastonbury. This is the very definition of a social whirl.
Jurrat now has a full UK passport and has graduated in all respects into the bottomless chaos of Little Britain. He might have been denied it if the Reforbrexitory Party had had its way. Thinking ahead, I have a survival bag packed ready for flight. It contains mostly books, false teeth, and alcohol. I drove into Lewes one day to have lunch with our friends the Cravens. It was a weekday and the town often resembles a moving car-boot sale, but I was able to park directly outside the restaurant, Squisito, where the food, service, and society were excellent. We welcomed Ella, Sam, and Sam’s parents Lynne and Peter for Sunday lunch, which largely consisted of a massive and expertly cooked trout and hollandaise sauce with a dessert of tiramisu. All our guests had spent the morning running at least 10 kilometers each, while I had simply shuffled around for an hour under the patchy sunshine with Max in the Ashdown Forest (Black Hill). The next day I walked around Limpsfield Chart in Surrey with friend Paul, lunching at the Carpenters’ Arms across the golf course. Our dogs were in ambulatory attendance as they were some weeks ago when we met in Worth to go in search of the elusive Lime Tree. This time we also vaguely looked for local historical artefacts but had to be content with passing the house in which Serge Stepniak, a Russian political emigre and leading Socialist thinker, lived just before dying in a railway accident in 1895; his funeral was attended by leaders of all the main socialist and anarchist groups in Britain at that time, including William Morris, Edward Bernstein, Peter Kropotkin, Eleanor Marx, and Keir Hardie. The Times, then a serious newspaper, commented admiringly on “a significant and striking spectacle, this assemblage of Socialists, Nihilists, Anarchists, and outlaws of every European country, gathered together to pay respect to the memory of their dead leader”.
At the end of the month, the wider Stanbrook family, including most of its outlaws, reunited for the christening of its latest member, Mia, daughter of my nephew Ivor and his wife Nicole, and sister to Elina. Alli and I with Jessie and Jurrat gathered at the venerable Temple Church for the short ceremony and had a lavish lunch in the Temple afterwards. Five-month-old Mia, who with her parents, had zig-zagged her way around half the world to get to London on time, seemed already far calmer and collected than her great uncle and many other relatives.
Yours in despatches from the font,
Lionel
