Best summer of my life

Rose Hoare remembers a very special summer that ended with her finding the love of her life.

The best summer of my life was actually two summers, stretched across two continents, and it started when I became single and ended when I fell in love.

It was a fantastic summer, but only in retrospect.

I barely noticed at the time because I was busy being miserable.

But despite finding myself recently arrived in London at the age of 35 with a newly-broken heart, I was also in the rare position of being financially and romantically independent, surrounded by a solid group of friends, and old enough to know exactly how to have fun. My summer went like this. In August, my friend Lottie who worked in the film industry, was organising an event in Cambridge. Four of us, including our mates Kerryanne and Brody, accompanied her there, wandering around the town’s beautiful cobbled streets, taking in its museums and impressive cheese shops.

Then we glided in the afternoon sun on a punt down the River Cam to Grantchester Meadows, and tied up to enjoy a magical dusk screening of Singin’ in the Rain, accompanied by a bevy of white swans.

It was on that trip that I started to notice how romantic my female friendships were, compared to all of my actual romantic relationships. We took so much pleasure from doing nice things for each other and were deeply sentimental about our friendships. (My male friendships are no less sentimental, but way less demonstrative.)

Four days later, at a pop-up Italian restaurant back in London, I ate the best dessert I’ve ever had, of vanilla icecream, olive oil and salt.

A week later, I headed to Berlin for Bernie’s hens’ weekend, where I floated down another river, this time the Spree.

At a traditional Austrian restaurant, I ordered schnitzel, which I fashioned into a Phantom of the Opera mask to cheer up a heartbroken Lottie. See – romantic.

A week after that, a bunch of us went to San Sebastian for a bittersweet trip:

Lottie had booked and then cancelled a wedding there.

The seaside town, where Europeans have strolled at sunset in earth-toned linen clothes possibly for centuries, is renowned as a gastronomic destination. (‘‘San Seb yr kind of town,’’ my dad texted.)

With all of her closest friends and parents – the ones who had booked their tickets immediately – we ate at fancy restaurants and gave little speeches of gratitude for friendships that might never have formed if she hadn’t been with the dud groom.

Each morning, I had a small, strong coffee and a salted cod

We took so much pleasure from doing nice things for each other and were deeply sentimental about our friendships.

Rose, right, reflects on her friendship with Lottie, left, and Kerryanne

omelette to fortify me for a day of swimming in the Bay of Biscay. One night, I had a glass of sherry with a slice of fried milk for dessert.

My carefreeness reached peak levels one night, when I literally joined a group of people skipping rope, like I was in a 1950s musical, jumping merrily to supportive chanting from the gathered crowd, before continuing on my way.

I look back on all of this now in amazement and envy, writing from a kitchen table smeared with peanut buttery toast crumbs after a weekend of changing diarrhoea nappies.

How on Earth did I afford all of that travel? These days, it takes me at least a year to save for holidays, and they’re mostly for the kids’ benefit.

Old emails reveal a breathtakingly cavalier approach to earning.

Invited to San Sebastian, I reply, ‘‘I won’t hear about this job until next week. Shall I just not take it and come to Spain? It’s just a dumb job at a dumb fashion mag’’.

Then some incredibly entitled justification about how ‘‘I can’t imagine not coming’’, and then, ‘‘maybe I can just get freelance gigs and do a bit of work during the day or something. OK, f... it, count me in’’.

After San Sebastian, I went back to London for three weeks then, in late September, took off for a wedding in Puglia, in the south of Italy.

On my way, I stopped in a coastal town called Polignano a Mare, set on limestone cliffs that look out over the Adriatic.

I stayed in a hotel that had a restaurant perched above a grotto, so as you sipped your aperol spritz (by yourself), surf crashed and thundered thrillingly against the rocks directly beneath you, their white spray the only thing visible in the candlelight.

My room had a small square window that opened on to a view of pure blue sea, no boats, no signs of other humans, other than trail marks on the surface, just the big blue ocean.

My neighbours had loud sex that would start up again just when you thought it was winding down, so I had to close that window, sadly.

At dusk, the sky went a magnificent violet and the air radiating off the stone streets was so warm that walking around in it felt like you were swimming.

I ate pasta with crushed up pistachio nuts and fresh mint, and went home with scamorza, a smoked cheese that stretches into delicious strings, like its cousin, mozzarella.

I came back to London for two weeks and then took off for Moscow with Kerryanne. Why Moscow? I can’t remember, and everywhere we went, locals asked us, bemused, why anyone would want to visit Moscow. Our Airbnb host complained that a previous tenant, an American, had gone missing during his stay and the family had pestered him with endless emails about it.

We toured that big, funny, slightly hostile city, tried bear dumplings (can’t recommend them) and buckwheat pancakes, and wore lots of makeup to blend in. In Red Square, someone in a mascot’s lion suit groped my breast.

Back in London, I started to think about family and friends in New Zealand – and the life I wanted to have some day – which would include them. It was starting to get cold anyway. It was time to go home. (But not before trips to Paris and Prague.)

With all that freedom, I sometimes felt uncomfortably weightless – not giddy like you’re having too much fun, but weightless in the way of being meaningless.

Shortly after coming home, Brody introduced me to someone great and the summer stretched out even further, much further, into the golden years I’m in now, where we sleep apart because our child’s taken over the bed, where most conversations are about kid admin, and when, if I get any freedom, I never know what to do with myself.