Summer is Here... Well Nearly

My sparkly windowsill as I quickly embark on some Spring cleaning. Loving opening the windows!

It is my firm belief that Summer Solstice is high Summer or Midsummer rather than the start of Summer and I am really glad to have found some content that agrees with me. A quick Google and I found this:

Although the June solstice marks the first day of astronomical summer, it's more common to use meteorological definitions of seasons, making the solstice midsummer or midwinter. Read more here: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/june-solstice.html

It makes sense to me for so many reasons. One, on the odd day, or sometimes just odd hours in a day, it's starting to FEEL like Summer. Also, two, in Pagan traditions 1st Feb is classed as the first day of Spring. If you therefore class a season as three months, that means Summer starts at the beginning of May, making the Solstice the height of it. Third, the evenings draw in from the Summer Solstice onwards, meaning it is the longest day. The start of something wouldn't see a decline would it? No! So intuitively you can guess that of course Solstice is the height of Summer just like it is the height in our hours of daylight! Yes, see you are agreeing with me now!

Also, there is a misconception that Summer Solstice is always 21st June when in reality it can vary from 20-22nd June. 2016 it will be on 21st though. I used to always spend Summer Soltice practicing yoga, usually in a really spiritual place like Glastonbury for example, but for the last 5 years I have spent it at BritMums Live (Cybermummy in 2011). This year it is on Saturday 25th June and I am yet to buy a ticket. It's a one day event now and I just popped on their snazzy new website (is it new? Looks it to me) and saw that there is a fringe drinks night the night before. Looks like I have some organising to do and a sponsor to seek.

So, astronomers class Summer Solstice as the start of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Meteorologists though, instead of agreeing with me that it starts at the beginning of May, consider the start of Summer as 1st June. I am glad to hear that many cultures have Midsummer celebrations on Summer Solstice confirming my view that it is indeed high Summer :-)

I'm REALLY looking forward to spending Summer as a family of four and seeing what my baby girl makes of it.

Taken yesterday when she spent an evening in the garden watching her brother play on the swings.

Her routine now is that she ALWAYS falls asleep on the afternoon school run so as I type this she is asleep. Ordinarily she stays asleep in the buggy but as I had her, yesterday and today in the Oyster Lite stroller instead of the pram, both days she has woken up when we get in. So I have breastfed her back to sleep and she is cosy on my knee right now. She's happy there and I am happy to have her there so I am typing this with the background noise of Aaron saying "when is dinner?". I don't feel sorry for him though as he ALWAYS has a sandwich crisps and a drink on the way home from school.

Again, I am sorry I did not blog/vlog enough during my pregnancy or the 12 weeks past since birth, but I am back on the horse now and have even put a video compilation together of her first 4 weeks. It was meant to cover her first 12 weeks to make me current and up to date, but it was long enough as it was and already took me 12 hours to edit. See what you think: