Love Sunshine

Waiting for my man (Helios)

The sun returned yesterday. Albeit fleetingly. By lunchtime it was pissing down. The sky was streaked with milky plumes, and there was a decidedly autumnal turn to the air. The long hot days of last month now seem like a distant dream.

I had established a ritual in those balmy days of getting an early bus to work, and sitting in the sun for about an hour and a half in a small park in Bloomsbury. Some days the sun was hot enough to prickle the skin and even tan at 7.45 am. A great way to start the day.

Yesterday I visited my favourite spot for the first time in what must be nearly 2 weeks, and the sun was barely touching my usual bench. I sat there shivering for ten minutes before it got into its stride.

This square, in fact most of Bloomsbury, is a haven for junkies. Spilling over from St Giles (Centre Point), and pushed South by the on-going overhaul of Kings Cross. You get used to seeing them about, urgently intent at 7.30 am. As I sat, shivering on my bench, waiting for my own man (Helios), I recognized an affinity with them. My sun devotion a dependency not so very different from theirs, and often taking me to great lengths to get my ‘fix’. My Turkey needed seriously warming up that morning.

A few weeks ago there would have been a choice of benches if my favourite spot (the Early Riser Special) was occupied. Today only my usual spot was barely straining into the sun, and was sprawlingly occupied by what looked like a vagrant. Shabby genteel, Dickens would have called him. He seemed engrossed in his book about chess moves, so I perched on the far end of my sunspot. And then the sun rose higher, and along with it the unmistakable aroma of street-sleeping hygienic neglect. A “Hot Tramp” may have turned Mr Bowie on (each to his own), but it made my vigil on MY sunspot deeply unpleasant for about another ten minutes. Before I could shuffle over to another that had finally been reclaimed by the late-summer sun. I can see my devotion is going to have its trials as the sun retreats this year.

Today is ropey. Rain. Overcast, with the occasional glimmer of hope. What has happened to our glorious summer? I despair...