Why Summer can be hard, and how I'm learning to slow down in the busy season

Embracing slow Summer days - and a seasonal recipe for blackcurrant and almond cakes 💜

The Summer Solstice has passed. The days are long and light and filled with possibility and optimism, often leaving us feeling like we should be too. There can be a growing sense of pressure to be busy, or fear of missing out (FOMO); you might feel that you should be out and about socialising and making the most of “it” (whatever “it” is) even if you’d rather be in bed with a good book and a cuppa whatever the season (hello!).

In reality, much as the world might try to tell us otherwise, sometimes our hardest times or challenges can come not in the depth of Winter but the height of Summer, like some sort of reverse pathetic fallacy. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. For various reasons my mental health has taken a battering over the last couple of years - a long story for another day - and although I’m now getting help, I feel Summer is actually a time that exacerbates my symptoms, and my gentle hunch is that I can’t be the only one…

Recent conversations with some lovely, like-minded writer pals have shown me that there are others who struggle in Summer, who experience a seasonal depression that actually happens when the days are light or long not dark and short, or who - like me - have trauma associations that will forever be tied to a Midsummer that seems beautiful on the outside but is rife with sensory associations and triggers.

If you feel this way as well, then I see you. If you’re not enjoying this season - for whatever reason - I encourage you to be kind to yourself and to go very gently. Summer doesn’t always feel like Summer “should” - and there will be other Summers. Maybe you don’t feel it in such an extreme way, perhaps just a nagging feeling of not-enoughness, or of itchy feet or a niggle of comparisonitis that grows as the mercury rises. Or maybe you love Summer and just want me to get to my usual recipe - if so, then scroll down! But if you do feel even a smidgen that Summer can be hard, then I wrote this newsletter for you. To help you to try and find those Summer glimmers by getting back to nature.

This new knowledge, that others struggle with a time of year where we are “meant” to be “living our best lives” (especially if you fall down the rabbit hole of social media for a dose of attempted escapism), made me feel sad, but also less alone. That contrast between outer lightness and inner darkness can be hard to bear, like we’re the only ones struggling while the universe is laughing at us. So I wanted to write this post, in the hope that my words would make others feel less alone too.

The conversations I’ve been having recently made me think of part of the introduction to the Litha chapter of my book, which I thought I would share here:

“As someone who has struggled with their mental health, I’m keenly aware that sometimes this time can be rife with FOMO: fear of missing out. In the darkest days of my twenties, the Summers were often the toughest of all – a time of burnout after long school years, the loss of routine, the feeling that everyone but me was having fun, the loneliness. When you are depressed, it doesn’t matter what’s happening outside. And even if you’re not, Summer can fail to live up to the expectation we Brits so often hopefully imbue it with.

A reality of soggy sandwiches, grey days and horizontal rain often put paid to the rose-tinted anticipation of childhood Summers.

But, since I began to tune into seasonal rhythms and traditions more and my mood improved, I’ve come to embrace both the anticipation and the reality of Summer: the frantic countdown to the holidays and the stillness that follows in all its rainy, sometimes banal, reality. For me, embracing our connections with nature and each other is key. I’ve learnt that the magic really is in the small moments: the taste of the first Scottish strawberry of the season; a haphazard bunch of flowers grown by someone you love; the green of the landscape after rain; the sound of the tide at the seashore.

Small moments of Summer magic. The Solstice is here.”

From my book, Slow Seasons.

Just because everything and everyone around us seems to be thriving and growing, just because the harvests are ripening, just because daylight seems endless doesn’t mean that our own inner season always aligns with the external one.

The world feels so heavy just now, and the temptation to doomscroll is strong. The urge to numb ourselves via social media feeds is ever-present. The invitation to compare our own existence with a stranger on the Internet’s highlight reel is probably only more keenly felt at Christmas than this time of year - at least in my experience.

So, what can we do?

I’ve been trying to practise what I preach. I’ve increased my step count with twice daily walks. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb often, and try not to check it. I have tended my humble pot garden and harvested the first cosmos, one or two at a time. I have walked for miles with the pram to seek out flat peaches and devoured them mindfully when I got home. I’ve been peeping in neighbours’ front gardens and taking photos of their flowers for my imaginary future plot. I’ve been savouring my daily coffee. I’ve podded peas with the baby and marvelled at his joy in tasting raspberries for the first time. I’ve been going to my writing group, being honest and vulnerable, and receive an honest vulnerability in return that makes me feel seen and held. I have been baking in earnest, journaling like my life depends on it, and taking time to just breathe.

I’m doing it all imperfectly, but even the trying is helping. Slowing it right down and taking things back to basics in a season that seems to speed by is helping little by little.

The thing that is definitely helping the most is making something with my hands. It’s a lesson I seem to need to learn over and over again and this season of life has been reminding me. Luckily Baby L loves to watch me cook and helps by holding utensils (even if he did have a wee tantrum when I took “his” whisk off him last week, all was forgotten when the banana pancakes eventually emerged from the pan). Cooking and baking have been bringing me back to myself, day by day. I am noting it all as I go to share with you some time.

The micro seasons of Summer are something I’ve been making time to notice. The fleeting presence of asparagus and cherries and blackcurrants. So I thought I’d pass on this small joy of mine and share a suitably simple seasonal recipe, one that I hope offers you a glimmer and helps you tune in with the season too. Plus if you’re somewhere experiencing a heatwave, it only requires 15 minutes to bake…

Blackcurrant and Almond Cakes

Blackcurrants are like little bursts of Summer flavour. In this recipe, I love the balance between tangy fruit and rich, buttery almond, as well as their pleasingly pink icing that sings of Summer. To make the cakes, you will need:

110g caster sugar
110g unsalted butter
60g self-raising flour
50g ground almonds
2 large free-range eggs
60g blackcurrants, topped and tailed
1/2 tsp almond extract

For the icing:
60g icing sugar
Juice of 6 or so blackcurrants (you could sieve it, but I don’t mind the bits!)
A few drops of almond extract
A few drops of lemon juice, to loosen the icing
12 extra blackcurrants (topped and tailed), for decoration (optional).

Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C Fan and grease a 12-hole bun tin.

By hand with a wooden spoon or in a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time with a little flour and mix until just combined.

Fold in the rest of the flour and the ground almonds.

Add a teaspoon of mixture to each hole of the bun tin, followed by a couple of blackcurrants in each, before sharing the rest of the mixture between the twelve holes of the tin to top each of the cakes.

Bake for 15 minutes or so, until risen and golden. Leave to cool a little before removing from the tin.

Make the icing by mixing the icing sugar with the blackcurrant juice, almond extract and then add a few drops of lemon juice until you have a firm water icing. Ice the cakes and top with a blackcurrant each.

Let me know if you make the cakes! What do you find helps during difficult seasons for you?

If you enjoy my seasonal newsletters, do consider joining us in my paid subscriber community for more regular posts. Together in this wee corner of the Internet we are creating a beautiful community of like-minded old souls who want to slow down, simplify and connect with the seasons. Here’s a flavour of what I’ve been posting over there this last month:

Slow Decorating: DIY Bobbin Mirror

Litha Reflections

Peach, Amaretti and Vanilla Cake

Sow, Grow, Harvest, Rest Reading Group: June

And if you’ve enjoyed my newsletter I’d love it if you could share it too to help me spread the word:

Thanks so much for being here! See you next month xxx

You can find more seasonal musings, recipes, crafts and lifestyle ideas in my book, ‘Slow Seasons’, which you can order here.