“In late summer, you might see a pair of bees curled up inside a deep, nectar-filled flower, taking shelter in a squash blossom, holding each other’s feet while they nap. Tipsy or tired?”
With almost a thousand hours of dizzying daylight sweetening the wild blackberries clustered on the hedgerows during the Irish summer months of July and August, there are worse things one can do of a lazy afternoon than mosey up the road with a saille basket to fill with warm fruit. Willow thrives in damp places, along riverbanks and shucks, growing partly in the water and partly on land, an otherworldly tree, according to Celtic lore, a bridge-builder between this world and the next. You’d be forgiven for returning home with sticky fingers and a bellyache, lips stained purple, with just enough sméar dubh in your crossbody willow forager basket (www.saillebaskets.com) to fashion a Bramble Cocktail laced with Muckross Wild Irish Gin, a heady botanical potent enough to get you through the long stretch in the evening.
Adventures beckon. The baleful winter almost forgotten, we are works in progress, every summer morning a promise. Will we make sandwiches and lemonade and picnic in the back garden? Or plan a pilgrimage to the great lawn of one of Ireland’s many ardently maintained heritage properties: Emo Court and Estate in County Laois, Farmleigh House and Gardens in Phoenix Park, Cork’s Doneraile Court, the Garnish Island garden Ilnacullin in Bantry Bay – seal colony, sea eagles, sunken garden, oh my! So much not to do each day…
So what if we can’t depend on the weather? Layering is baked into the Irish psyche. Uniqlo’s cropped, ribbed sleeveless top with built-in bra under a STABLE of Ireland blue stripe Irish linen top with navy cuff trousers, a Donegal Aran jumper in Irish wolfhound grey (just in case) with a STABLE Irish Tricolour Scarf (just because). Just because it’s raining doesn’t mean we won’t throw ourselves into the sea; just because it’s summer doesn’t mean we won’t light the fire when we get home.
“Inebriate of air – am I – and debauchee of dew – reeling – thro’ endless summer days – from inns of molten blue” Emily Dickinson
Appetites may wane during the warmer months. Dogs, content to lie on warm pavers until all hours, aren’t fussed about food, snapping at bluebottles, lapping at water. Salads suddenly seem more tempting than soups and stews, barbecue most tempting of all! Fire up the grill and the neighbourhood suddenly smells like Puck Fair or, if you lash on venison sausage instead of bog standard bangers, Electric Picnic. School’s out; driving through the city’s a breeze, but who wants to be surrounded by buildings when, somewhere not too far away, there are trees and cows and coast and crows. Crows don’t scare easily, the barley fields black with them, used to the shotgun scarers banging on, dawn to dusk, more used to the bangers than we are. Still, we drowse, curled up in our lawn chairs like sleeping bees. In late summer, you might see a pair of bees curled up inside a deep, nectar-filled flower, taking shelter in a squash blossom, holding each other’s feet while they nap. Tipsy or tired?
In Live at the Bon Soir, recorded over three nights in 1962 during her engagement at the Greenwich Village club, 20-year-old Barbra Streisand sang Harold Arlen’s “A Sleepin’ Bee” from Truman Capote’s 1954 Broadway musical House of Flowers, a ballad she refers to as her favourite song. Inspired by Capote’s travels to Haiti and the bordellos of Port-Au-Prince, the song recounts a local legend promising true love to any girl who manages to hold a sleeping bee without getting stung. Streisand’s soaring rendition goes to our head. Tipsy with it. @susanzelouf
1. I’M DRINKING in summer scents, from tart greens to suntan lotion; browse Brown Thomas in store for yours.
2. I’M GIVING shade in a straw sunhat by Kyiv-based milliner Ruslan Baginskiy. www.mytheresa.com.
3. I’M SPRITZING Phlur’s Phloria for a sun-soaked island vibe, at Selfridges.
4. I’M GLOWING like a goddess in Drunk Elephant’s D Bronzi, from Boots.
5. I’M ISLAND-HOPPING in a Cavalli SS24 Paradise collection Plumage dress. www.luisviaroma.com.
6. I’M SHUSHING near sleeping bees. Photograph by Joe Neely.
7. I’M LISTENING to Barbs recount her life story in My Name is Barbra on Audible.
8. I’M WINDOW-SHOPPING Rome’s cobbled streets for unique gioielleria offerings. Silmaril, via dei Coronari 36.
9. I’M TOASTING summer with Muckross Wild Irish Gin.
10. I’M SAVING my skin in a Bimba y Lola SS24 chocolate brown plaited hat. €66; www.farfetch.com.
11. I’M TIME-TRAVELLING to 13th century Japan via a dazzling poetry collection translated by Trinity scholar James Hadley and Irish poet Nell Regan. www.gutterbookshop.com.
12. I’M POURING lemonade from a sea green Asprey London Octopus jug.
13. I’M STEPPING out in Prada green satin mules. www.mytheresa.com
14. I’M VACAYING at home in Loewe x Paula’s Ibiza yellow sunnies. www.mondello1962.com
15. I’M BRAVING the Forty Foot in Toteme’s monogram Cava swimming costume, from www.stoy.com.
16. I’M FORAGING with a saille basket. www.origineire.com.