A Very British Summer

It arrives with the sparkle and sweetness
of lemonade, echoes of cricket
on the green, and scents of mown grass
and public swimming pool. But
behind the summer shimmer
there’s a threatening glimmer
of thunderstorms and torrential rain
to send us back indoors again.

Kim M. Russell, 22nd July 2024

Image by Urban Vintage on Unsplash

This Monday, De is hosting the Quadrille at the dVerse Poets Pub, where we are writing about summer.

57 thoughts on “A Very British Summer”

      1. We’re in for a hot day, with smoke from fires outside our state. Nasty, nasty.

        Glad it’s more comfortable for you!

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  10. Sounds very much like a Queensland summer, the thunderstorms always build up and slam us in the afternoons. I love how your summer comes with the sparkle and sweetness of lemonade…ours comes like a tequila slammer! 🙂

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    1. Thank you, Dianne! When I was a child, we used to watch my father play cricket most Sundays, but I always had a lukewarm bottle of Coca Cola. These days, I wouldn’t touch the stuff, but back then it was a treat.

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  15. How evocative of summers past and aware of the threats implicit in the present and future weather and climate.

    However I am glad to see, in one of your comments, that you like the rain. When I was five or six, my slightly older, horse-adoring sister and I used to gallop around the (little, urban) garden whinnying, during thunder storms!

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  16. Yes, that threatening glimmer… I actually wrote two summer poems and found it hard to keep the dark clouds away from them both. An age thing perhaps, or the age we find ourselves in. The rain has been more ominous than I ever remember, in that when it rains it pours and has been quite damaging. Well done with your poem from shimmer to glimmer, very evocative.

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  17. This quadrille made me smile, Kim! That “threatening glimmer” of rain never seems to be far behind in Britain or Belgium, as I can attest from my days in the latter… I also love those opening sensory details: “sparkle and sweetness / of lemonade, echoes of cricket / on the green…”

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    1. Thanks so much, Chris. When we were in Bruges last month, there was a massive thunderstorm with hail. But it was over by 11 am and we were able to enjoy our afternoon.

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  19. I love summer thunderstorms! At least, the kind that don’t drop a tree on your house (yes. twice. But then I live in the midwest and it’s just sort of a thing)

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      3. When we lived in Mitcham, a tree outside the next block was struck by lightning. It wasn’t cut down and we knew it as the lightning tree. Because we lived on the top floor, I could see everything from my bedroom window. I loved watching storms.

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