Summer has made way for autumn. Being in Britain at this time of year feels like hitting the dance floor and seeing the cool kids creep away - there is a distinct sense that it's all over. The wind sucks its teeth at you. Falling leaves rustle like 30-somethings in practical clothing. Darkness descends, and even the young feel old.
You're all devastated, of course, but personally I'm relieved. I've made it through this summer without a lawn game injury, a seasonal occurrence Lucy found amusing at first, then worrying, then annoying, then amusing again. Snowboarding, white water rafting and mountain trekking have all left me in one piece, but put me in a park with plastic sports equipment and body parts fly. Two years back a majestic in-air frisbee catch brought me down in a pothole - I think the only one in the park - and left me with a cricket-ball-sized ankle sprain that took months to heal.
But though the curse didn't strike this summer, it found a new way to worry me. One glorious June day I found myself in a post-wedding croquet game outside a country house on the Isle of Wight. There were large mallets and hoops with spikes on the ends. We all had champagne in our systems. The risks were obvious to me, but of course you never admit to the curse; for some reason refusing a tame garden activity because you might get hurt is considered loss of face. So I played on, striking with a 'delicate touch' and remaining ever-vigilant for potholes.
There was more to this than a passing ordeal. For people in the decade-long marriage corridor - roughly 25-35 - summer is essentially a three-month-long wedding show. Every other week brings a new idea, and they all have to be assimilated into your own plans with a few original touches that someone else will then assimilate and elaborate upon, so that by our great-great-great-great-grandchildren's time weddings will include every conceivable feature including last year's, like the winters in Game of Thrones.
If inspiration brings lawn games into the mix, weddings will be able to match HBO's brutal series for body count too. Future generations will see guests - the children of House Midgley, mostly - blinded by swingball, choking on shuttlecocks, losing fingers to poorly-aimed boules. The emergency services, already overstretched in the summer months, will be crippled. Dry cleaners will be swamped with bloodied and grass-stained tuxedos. Next stop: economic meltdown.
So no, I'm not mourning the departure of summer. Bring on the long, gloomy nights spent securely indoors, with as little 'inspiration' as possible. The calendar year's fickle teenager has had it her own way long enough, and I'll be lobbying for a cosy Christmas wedding. With a sledge ban.
words Nathan Midgley
Copyright WED Magazine 2012
