FROM THE EDITOR

Last summer was supposed to be the greatest of my life. I was supposed to start a book, under the shade of the cherry tree in our back garden, where I had placed a small table and chair. I was supposed to make fresh lemonade on Saturday mornings and serve it to my husband as he toiled in the garden. I was supposed to go to a festival, camp under the stars and eat baked beans around a camp fire. And I was supposed to see old friends, drink cold white wine with them in the baking London streets, while wearing the perfect white dress. Summer lay ahead of me like a wide open road, waiting to be conquered. And then, before I knew it, it was over. Just like that. The table and chair sat in the same spot I had left them; the lemons had rotted in their brown paper bags; the festival tickets were never booked and old friends never contacted. I looked back down the hot road of summer and saw nothing but sad, missed opportunities. Because this is what we do with summer – we fill it with hope and expectation. It sits, a shimmering three months of the year, when we put our real lives on hold and project everything we’d like to be (thinner, browner, sexier, more sociable) onto it. We try to control summer, as though it is something to be tamed. And yet the best summer I ever had was the one that took me by complete surprise. It was the summer of 2002. I was not in the best shape of my life. Neither was I doing some incredible job. The truth was, I was pretty poor, living in a terrible flat, with a dreadful haircut and yet… I was open to everything. I spent from June to the last dying days of August saying yes to everything that came my way – parties, book readings, dates with friends of friends… and, as a result, my summer took off. I made new friends on sticky dance floors and in the middle of fields. I read books I never knew it was possible to enjoy (Zoë Heller’s Notes On A Scandal – still one of my all-time favourites) and I kissed lots (and lots) of inappropriate men. It was bliss. So this summer, my advice to you is this: don’t plan it, just live it. Keep your mind and your options open because the moments that change your life are the ones that take you by surprise.

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