thyrkas, summer can be very hit and miss in the UK but we have had a few beautifully warm days (temps in the 70's are quite hot enough for us) with the garden full of roses, orange blossom, strawberries, early peas and beans, birds twittering and in the distance, across the River Severn hovering over the Cotswold Hills, a few hot-air balloons. This has been a very dry year so far with probably less than an inch of rain since Jan . . . when it snowed.

I try and find a poem.

Do lyrics count?

This first of summer day in the Southern U.S. is HOT but brings to mind the following song by Gershwin in Porgy and Bess.

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

It may be the official first day of summer, but we have had summer weather for weeks now. The weatherman says 90s every day this week but all the way down to plain 90 on Thursday with thunderstorms, of which we have had quite a few also.

Froniga, I like that song. A couple of verses and the chorus from My Old Kentucky Home:

The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,
'Tis summer, the people are gay;
The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.

The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright;
By 'n' by hard times comes a-knocking at the door,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

CHORUS
Weep no more my lady
Oh! weep no more today!
We will sing one song for my old Kentucky home,
For my Old Kentucky Home far away.

My Old Kentucky Home State Park is located at Bardstown, KY, and showcases the house in which Stephen Foster wrote the song. There is an outdoor theater performance called My Old KY Home on grounds near the house that purports to tell the story of his visit. You can Google and hear the song.

Here's another song from back in the day...the lyrics are funny (odd), but it brings back fun memories of summers in San Diego, headed to the beach with friends, singing along with the radio. Mungo Jerry recorded this.

In the summertime when the weather is fine
You can reach right up and touch the sky
In the summertime
You got women, you got women
on your mind...

We're no threat, people, we're not dirty, we're not mean
We love everybody, but we do as we please
When the weather's fine
We go fishin' or go swimmin' in the sea.
We're always happy,
Life's for living, yeah, that's our philosophy.

Yes. I remember AdlestropÂ
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was AdlestropÂonly the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas

Love the poem, Martin! Who is the author?

My first thought when I saw "Summer" was a wonderful, little-known novel by Edith Wharton by the same title.

My second thought was "Oh, what is so rare as a day in June! Then, if ever, come perfect days...."

I live in a southern climate, but in Tidewater, Virginia, June is fairly decent, with sea breezes, cool nights, hydrangeas, magnolias, and gardenias.

My third thought, as I am about to re-locate:

Barter

I will exchange a city for a sunset,
The tramp of legions for a wind's wild cry;
And all the braggart thrusts of steel triumphant
For one far summit,
Blue, against the sky.

Marie Blake.

Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I hope Martin doesn't mind if I answer - Adlestrop is by Edward Thomas, who died in the First World War.

& if you look under the poem and to the left, you'll see I put the poet there...

...for "left", read "right"...

Carolyn, I like Old Kentucky Home, too. Don't they play that at the Kentucky Derby? Is it Kentucky's state song?

Martin, Adlestrop gave me the ethereal feeling of wandering around in an impressionist's painting.

Truth is, I like all the lyrics and poems posted so far.

I adore the Adlestrop poem - so quintessentially English to me... Thanks!

And a flash back with the Mungo Jerry lyrics! :-)

Let's go back in time even further than Mungo Jerry! How about the Kinks?

The taxman's taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

And I can't sail my yacht
He's taken ev'rything I've got;
All I've got's this sunny afternoon.

Save me
Save me
Save me from this squeeze
I've got a big fat momma tryin' to break me.

And I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury:
Lazing on a sunny afternoon

In the summertime.
In the summertime.

My girlfriend's gone off with my car
And gone back to her ma and pa
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruel-
ty. Now I'm sitting here
Sipping at my ice-cold beer
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

Help me
Help me
Help me sail away
You give me two good reasons why I ought to stay.

'Cause I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury:
Lazing on a sunny afternoon

In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime.

Froniga, yes, it is Kentucky's state song; and yes, they sing it every year at the Derby. One of my uncles by marriage, who was a big busines type, dearly loved the races; and every year at the Derby, he teared up during that song. It was a family joke.

Here is the chorus of another that came to mind:

In the good old summertime,
In the good old summertime,
Strolling thru' a shady lane
With your baby mine.
You hold her hand and she holds yours,
And that's a very good sign
That she's your tootsie wootsie
In the good, old summertime.

Martin - Oooh yes. Good memories there, too. "Lazing on a sunny afternoon."

I wonder if I remember correctly that the seasons are grouped differently in the UK and in the US. In the US we say that summer is June, July and August; is it true that the summer months in the UK are May, June and July?

vee- your description of the countryside around your home in summer reminds me of "Thrush Green" by Miss Read, which was the first book I read by that author. That was 25 years ago! The images of the little village, its people and their intertwined lives as described by Miss Read are still clarly present in my memory.

It was at the end of the English summer when we went to see Gloucester Cathedral. Very early morning after rain that had washed the town and sky clean. No one was about as we approached and a bird dipped its beak in a clear puddle left in an uneven paving stone. From nearby came the sound of a flute. We stood still and I said quietly, in rapt wonder, "This could be the start of a movie."
I have that moment with me forever.

thyrkas, in the 'Olden Days' when our ancestors danced round the maypole I'm sure Ist May was considered the beginning of summer. Up to 1752 the calendar had gradually got out of kilter with the rest of Europe and we were eleven days behind so Pariiament had to re-arrange things. That number of days can make quite a difference in terms of temperature as early May can be quite cold and wet. And the simple folk of the 1750's really thought they were going to die eleven days earlier. ;-)
The 'politically correct' thinkers would probably agree with the US dates . . .but how then is 21st June Mid-Summer's Day?
I so agree that Miss Read did a wonderful job in bringing to life that quiet, uneventful way of country life in the early '50's, as I remember it, especially her first Village School with jars of tadpoles on the 'Nature Table' and slimy balls of clay wrapped in a damp old towel for 'Art' lessons. Even sitting outside when it got too hot in the classroom with our sticky fingers working our blood-flecked needlework (what did Mother ever do with those grubby little pot-holders and raffia shopping bags?).

I wonder how much daylight RP'ers get at this time of year?
Here in the south-ish of England it is getting light by 4am and still light enough to read at 10pm. In Scotland it hardly gets dark at all. In the Shetland Isles (on the way to Norway) this time of year is known as the 'simmer dim'.

Another fan of Miss Read books, here.

Vee, I get up extremely early. Here on the east coast, we are at the same latitude as Spain and Portugal, but our climate is very different. At present, we begin to see day light as early as 5:00 a.m. (And it's then that I hear the bird choirs!). Sunset where I am happens around 8:30 or a little after.

Vee - I always assumed that we considered June 21st the first day of summer because it's the longest day (most daylight hours) of the year. But maybe there's another reason.

I'm not sure what time dawn breaks here (Northern California) because I'm rarely up to see it. :) But according to the weather site I Googled, we had sunrise at 5:40 and sunset will be at 8:33.

I'm at the opposite (western) edge of the Eastern time zone from Mary. Sunrise here is about 6:15 am, and sunset is 9:15 pm, or so.

The most interesting thing for us this summer is the lightning bugs (fireflies to you sophisticated types). There is a huge oak tree in the front yard and one in the back, as well. The former owners planted ivy around them because the grass won't grow underneath, and the lightning bugs evidently love the ivy. There are lots of them; and they fly up, down, and around in it, flashing as they go. It's very pretty.

My daughter and I had a boat ride in the glow worm caves in New Zealand last year. It was beautiful and eerie as well. They glow constantly rather than flashing off and on as our bugs do.

Sunrise in the upper midwest of the US today was 5:26am; sunset will be at 9:06. If I remember correctly, birds need two candlepower of light in order to wake up and sing; that can't be very much light, becasue they start singing before sunrise.

Yes, I do wonder about the Mid-Summer's Day designation of June 21st,vee, and on the other hand, I wonder about "In the Bleak Midwinter" of Christina Rossetti's beautiful Chritmas poem. Christmas falls on Dec 25th, and the winter solstice is Dec 21st. If traditionally winter was Nov-Dec-Jan, then it would make perfect sense to have Christmas fall in bleak midwinter. But - I can't bear the thought of winter right now! No more silly wondering for me - I am going to carpe diem and enjoy summer!

At midsummer Honolulu has about 13.5 hours of daylight (sunrise today was at 5:50 am, sunset will be at 7:l6 pm), considerably less daylight than most of you are getting. But dawn and dusk are short-lived at this latitude (21 degrees North): the sun tends to just pop up or pop below the horizon, almost instant full daylight or full darkness. (At the equator it's like flipping a switch on and off.)

In a place with harsh winters, summer is a relief. If the temperature seldom gets above 80 degrees F, I enjoy summer, but otherwise I HATE it! It is my least favorite season. Probably because I always seem to get stuck somewhere between 20 and 30 degrees N latitude. Summer to me is insects (nasty ones: mosquitos, gnats, no-see'ums, midges, wasps); the worst weather (tornados, hailstorms, hurricanes, firestorms from drought); and discomfort (heat with humidity inducing heatstrokes, heat rashes, food poisoning, etc). Now I've forgotten why summer is supposed to be when the living is easy. :-)

Vee - I guess I didn't get the "mid-summer" question. Sorry if I sounded dense.

I did a little research and came up with a link that gives some explanation. I can't vouch for the accuracy, but it makes sense.

Here is a link that might be useful: Why it's mid-summer

An interesting 'mid-summer' link which seems to show that it a recent American idea to so name 21st June.

Re Stonehenge. Many many years ago, while still at College, I joined a group of friends, none of them constrained as I was, by College rules, to make an over-night trip down to Salisbury Plain. This was at the equinox on 23 June(?) so there was only one other person in the area. In those days the Stones were just fenced off with a length of barbed wire, which we climbed over, dragging the other visitor with us. He was a weird elderly man in a black cape and wide-brimmed hat; though at the time it didn't seem strange. As the sun wasn't shining and we were all very tired it was something of an anti-climax and we left the old fellow there while we drove off in search of breakfast. I spent the whole return journey worrying that my night away had been 'found out' by the authorities and I would be for the chop. They hadn't and I wasn't.

Lots of recent work in the Salisbury Plain area has uncovered a series of wide pathways that led to/from linked monuments/henges, several miles apart taking in rivers and streams (water playing an important role in the religious beliefs of whoever these people were). No-one know their true purpose, how many people built them, how many hundreds even thousands of years it took or who these groups were. The words Celt/Druid are used way too easily and romantically. Some suggestions are now being put forward that these henges could have been used as a Winter solstice sign as on the shortest day the sun shines on certain marker stones . . .bringing hope for the returning warmth and light.
And this is probably far more than you wanted to know. :-)

This is from today's Writer's Almanac by Garrison Keillor:

In 1897, Henry James leased Lamb House, a villa in Sussex. He bought it a few years later and lived there until his death in 1916. One of his frequent visitors was his close friend the novelist Edith Wharton. In A Backward Glance (1934), Edith Wharton wrote about a day trip with Henry James to Bodiam Castle, near Lamb House: "Tranquil white clouds hung above it in a windless sky, and the silence and solitude were complete as we sat looking across at the crumbling towers, and at their reflection in a moat starred with water-lilies, and danced over by great blue dragonflies. For a long time no one spoke; then James turned to me and said solemnly: 'Summer afternoon  summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.'"

friedag, "changes in latitude, changes in attitude" - nod to Jimmy Buffett. Funny how these writers who gush about summer are usually Eurocentric or have a high latitude perspective. I wonder what they would say about summer after spending one in the interior valley of California, the deserts of the American Southwest or the steam cooker of the American South.

Summer vacation from school is the only thing about summer I have ever liked. Unfortunately it no longer applies to me. Summer is to be endured in whatever cool dim cave I can find.

Vee, Bernard Cornwell wrote a book called Stonehenge, (fiction, naturally) that posited some interesting ideas about the building of it. Have you read it?

As I am currently experiencing zero temperature nights Downunder, I am warming myself reading this thread.
Vee, now do you understand why I need the Damart shop to reopen? :-(

Carolyn, I haven't read the Cornwell book. Is it far-fetched?

Ann, remember a few months ago when we were freezing in England and you had temps in the 90's! Today it is the mid 80's here and SO dry. Even the Lake District (NW Eng) which is usually damp and soggy has had the driest summer since 1929 and hosepipe bans are expected.
Difficult to think of a Damart shop (thermal undies) being needed in Aus.
OT the press are taking a keen interesting in the ousting of your PM & his place taken by a woman in what we think of as your macho nation. The BBC dug-up Germaine Greer to add her opinion . . .which she did volubly and at length. ;-)
Siobhan, did you know that Rumer Godden rented Lamb House for a while? An interesting part of the SE coast, with Romney Marsh inland plus the beautiful South Downs near by (think Kipling). Now there's a place that gets really cold in winter with wind straight off the English Channel.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rye, an interesting town

Vee, Cornwell made his book sound quite logical, but what do I know? It had slaves and downtrodden women in it, as I recall, but I did enjoy it. As everyone says, the site looks small when you actually see it, but that is before you start to think about moving those stones about.

Three of us did a day trip to Rye once but didn't see Lamb House. It was October and poured chilly rain all day. We saw the cathedral, walked around town, and then hung out in tearooms until train time. Then there was trouble on the tracks further down. We ended up splitting the cost of a taxi to the next station in order to get back to London.

OT Vee, I know that the perception of Australia is of a place that is always hot but in fact it can get very cold here. Also there are several states that have or have had women Premiers, at present we have a woman Governor General and women got the vote in the early 20th century!
Women run businesses but when I co-owned and managed a small printing and publishing firm in the seventies, putting out a local newspaper and several magazines, (including a motor sports one, I don't even drive but hired knowledgable staff) my husband was the one ostensibly in charge. Men found it easier to relate to that. I hope it would be different now.