Peregrinations

In praise of summer’s insouciance

Anthony Peregrine

The last festival of the summer was in the next village along. We bobbed there. Under trees, the boules competition was exercising older talents.

Nearby, at the openair bar, younger folk had arrived for lunchtime aperitifs, then stalled. Next up, it being 6pm, half a dozen Camargue horsemen and women galloped through the narrow streets in a V-formation.

Confined within the V were three speeding black bulls. It was the task of sprightlier village lads to sprint, grab the bulls by the horns and break up the formation. Which they did, with bravura. Our infant English guests seemed impressed. Apparently this kind of thing doesn’t happen in Poole.

As we returned, though, I spotted brown leaves in the plane trees. Summer was clearly winding down. The last bull-running fete signals high season is over. For weeks now, the default mode has been skin-searing heat, rosé wine and energetic idleness. Days have been longer, larger, looser. Everything could wait, and if it couldn’t, it was too late already. Beaches have been packed with gaiety – on which subject, please, no more about the burkini.

If we are in a conflict of cultures, then this is an absurdly trivial element. (Richard the Lionheart before Acre: “Hold the siege, lads; let’s first tackle the swimwear.”) If we aren’t, then why are we harassing women?

Dining on the terrace has been de rigueur, until you sat back and discovered it was 1.30am – exactly the right time, it transpired, to try the Kendal Mint Cakeflavoured vodka brought as a gift. (Completely wonderful; buy as much as you can afford.) The arrival of guests on holiday reinforced the illusion that the real world had slowed down and, by mid-August, stopped. It afforded the opportunity, too, to throw visiting tots into pools, rivers and other watercourses, which is always rewarding.

Life was hazy with light, heat and lack of focus.

And now it’s sharpening again. September has been heralded by Sarkozy returning to the screens and satchels in the shops where the sun-cream used to be. All the serious stuff you thought you’d never have to think about forever more returns to smack you in the face. Naturally, the French south remains beautiful and warm through October and, if the nation is no longer at play there, compensation comes in the sense of calm and of being backstage when the main show is over.

Further on, autumn, too, has its great moments: foie gras and truffles, the wine harvest, woodsmoke and Montpellier occasionally winning a soccer game. But it’s summer’s gift of insouciance, of family, friends and kids at leisure, of festivals of bulls and boules that truly illuminate the year. Now they’re over. Then again, there’s some of the vodka left, so we’ll maybe survive.