[Broadcast 23/07/17]
Much to my joy, we’re currently enjoying long, warm days and short, mild nights. BBQ’s have seen a bit of action and the freezer, previously home to a frozen pizza or two, now houses ice creams, lollies and the like.
Whilst the summer season organically extends our days for us, we too are able to warp our concept of time to stretch out our favourite days. They come to mean more to us, ever expanding in our memories, than other 24 hour periods.
I’m thinking particularly of my wedding day. A day that, in my mind, seemed much longer than many of my other days spent on planet earth. I got married on the 6th June – D-Day. The Oxford Dictionary definition for D Day reads: the day on which an important operation is to begin or a change to take effect. That is certainly one way of putting it.
The 1962 epic war film, The Longest Day recounts the D-Day landings at Normandy - the turning point in WWII. Whilst the battle may have been long in an objective, watch-orientated sense, the sense of its length is truly located in its sheer importance; so much depended on that day.
This week marks the celebration of Midsummer, the period of time centred on the summer solstice. Whilst Midsummer was once traditionally celebrated with bonfires, feasts and general merrymaking, since the Reformation we’ve let the whole thing slip. Except, amazingly, in Cornwall!
On a few high hills in those holy lands (where, my own marital D-Day took place coincidentally) the midsummer celebration of the longest day still takes place; serving as a reminder to me that we can eek out the very best of times. Just remember, what a difference a day makes!