The Case Against Summer

Now it gets dark at 10 o'clock, technically, though the sky is still blueish thereafter for a while, strewn with great dark clouds.
Alone I must be the only one who sees the beauty of lamplight on trees, the trees that in the afternoon are shimmering, every leaf like a little hand applauding.
In the afternoon the heat is like a physical force you struggle against, the hissing in the long grass grown wild.
In late June and early July the grass pollen releases, and I become a victim of the pollen scattered on the breeze, swelling my eyes and irritating my nose. At first it used to affect my throat, and I'd wake up with an itchy throat only five cups of hot tea could soothe. Sometimes my eyes would swell up. Then the sneezing; the relentless flow of mucus trickling inside the sinuses, the peculiar irritated tickle bordering on pain, and then becoming pain.
The head under the shower method. Back home, change all clothes and flush the pollen out of your sinuses. Anti-histamines make one drowsy, in the new sheets I fall asleep and dream of a serial killer who has posted a series of videos on Youtube, lined-up grey from his prison cell..
My dad told me that in the 80's he was in Muswell Hill, he and a friend were looking for a place to park one night. They noticed that up one street there was a large gap in the cars, so they parked there. They came back the next night, and the following nights, and the large space was still there, and they parked there again, wondering why no-one was using it. Eventually someone told them they had been parking right outside the flat of Dennis Nilsen, the serial killer...

Plus points for summer: The landscapes are full and look nice to draw from, the colours are vivid, though the blossom is long since gone from the apple trees and they're given over to a uniform dark green. Purists say the winter tree has more character, and that the summer trees "look like brocolli". So what, I replied, people like brocolli, brocolli is delicious. Brocolli trees in a painting will remind them of food. I recalled the early Edward Hopper I had seen, a lady by a window, the paint looked strangely delicious, like food. The browns looked like chocolate and the reds, like candy.

Bad points for summer: Hayfever and psoriasis flare-up. Emptiness. You are meant to be on holiday, the offices are abandoned, even when occupied they feel empty. In the old days they'd abandon the television schedules even.

People gets seasonal affective disorder in the autumn/winter, but not me. I think there's something depressing about summer, and I prefer the winter.