Ready, Set, Summer!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Unlike any other season, there are multiple starting points to “summer.” Because summer, more than any other of the four seasons, is a concept. It’s a verb, a vibe, a change in our lives. The astronomical start of summer is, of course, the solstice on June 21st. The tourism industry start of summer is Memorial Day weekend, when three days off work and school combine with (hopefully) good weather to encourage everyone to take a trip to the shore/coast/lake/mountains.

For any of us who have raised kids or worked in the school system, the next start of summer is the end of the school year. In the snowy Northeast, this is often right around the middle of June. I looked back at my calendars, and it consistently hit between June 13 and June 17 in our town.

But to me, the real start of summer is the beginning of July. In Maine, we’re finally getting warm enough weather to risk going places without an extra layer. I can leave the windows open all night, and I’ve gotten the fans down from the attic. In my family, this week was usually the first week at camp Bishopswood for one of our kids (we usually staggered them over the summer because they didn’t want to be part of a sibling set while there.) And of course for most of us, no matter where we live, the hallmarks of summer occur in July and August: sweet corn and amusement parks, trips to the beach and to the swimming pool, baseball and badminton. 

Reds, when does summer really start for you, and what are its hallmarks?

HALLIE EPHRON: Of course summer starts for me with food. Sweet corn, cherries, and local strawberries! Even though our local corn isn’t ripe for weeks and the cherries are from another coast. The end of the school year (no more bus-driven traffic jams in my town square)! And this year, going to Maine for July 4 to enjoy the fireworks over Casco Bay.

Meanwhile I’m staring at the air conditioner sitting on the floor of my office and figuring out who I’m going to cadge into helping me lift it into the window.

 

LUCY BURDETTE: It’s been the weirdest weather in New England–cool and cloudy. Actually, I am very grateful we don’t have a heat wave! My summer hallmarks, like Hallie’s, are mostly food. Tuna melts, cookouts, corn on the cob, strawberries in our garden, tomatoes!! This year our church has been given the honor of being the grand marshall in the July 4 parade. I think we are marching, and I *hope* the grandchildren will be marching with us. I try not to make too many plans when they visit, because they change and change:).

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: By the time I left Dallas for London on Midsummer’s Day, I was already over it. We’d had a few weeks of weather bearable enough for grilling, the summer produce was in at the farmer’s market, but you knew the heat was coming, and it did. Followed me to London for the first few days, too, which were truly miserable, but now we have perfect English summer, with temps in the 70s. The British strawberries are everywhere and they are wonderful! Everyone is dining al fresco! I am not going to want to go home, where the rest of summer will just be a heat endurance test.

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Lucy, I just burst out laughing. I am so ..relieved and reassured. When are the kids coming? We honestly NEVER know, It’s already changed three times, seriously. How  I know summer is here is that our farm shares come, and it is SO great! Snap peas, and super fresh lettuce, and fantastic bread, and all kinds of amazing vegetables–broccolini, and spinach, and corn corn corn. (what do I do with garlic scapes, again?)  And tomatoes! Our SunGolds are on the way..they’re green now, but I know they will be here soon. If the rabbits eat them, I fear for the battle royale…they can have the hosta–just ask them–but our tomatoes are off limits. Ad the perennial question: Will I get into the pool this year?

JENN McKINLAY: Living in AZ, summer starts in mid-May when the temperatures spike into the 100’s (although we got lucky this year and it waited until mid-June). And it’s all about getting the heck outta here! When not on vacation at our summer place in Nova Scotia or beach time in San Diego, we spend time in our pool, waiting for the heat to pass. Summer ends in mid-Oct so we have a ways to go.  

RHYS BOWEN:  I am currently enjoying English summer in the wilds of Cornwall, with extremely spotty internet, hence my absence from Jungle Reds so much recently. We’ve had some glorious days, eating outside, light until ten o’clock. I think that spells summer for me— eating outside. I love picnics. I love sitting on a balmy evening watching lights come on in the valley. Usually summer starts early in California but it’s been a weird year, cooler in CA than in London. When I get home I’ll look forward to farmers markets and fresh fruit.

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What defines the start of summer for you? 

 

Images  by velk1976,  David Mark,  Jill Wellington,  -Rita-👩‍🍳 und 📷 mit ❤,  Engin Akyurt and Walter Bichler, all from Pixabay.

The Summer '16 Bucket List

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The tourists are here in Maine, the temperatures have been up in the seventies more than once, and GAME OF THRONES is about to broadcast its season closer. That must mean it's summer! And summer, of course, means it's time to share our seasonal bucket lists.

Last year, I left out "writing a book," and look what happened. So I'm starting off with that on my list. I've actually given my agent and editor a new deadline at the end of August, so you can all hold me to it. I'm pretty sure public shaming is what I need right about now.

Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

One of my perennial items has already been crossed off: heading to Hadlock Field in Portland to see the local minor league team, the Sea Dogs. I went earlier this month with my brother-in-law and Youngest, and it was as delightful as it always is. So I'm adding "Go again!" to my list.

One of the things on my list is to get outside to enjoy the patio more. Last summer, Ross and the Boy built a lovely slate patio in the perfect spot in our back garden: sunny, breezy, with lovely views of the trees, the flowers, and, in the evening, the sunset. We have comfortable chairs and enough tables to handily set down a drink and a book.  Ross has taken to heading out to enjoy a beer in the late afternoon; I need to remind myself that working on the computer or doing the laundry or what have you is not more important than sharing some time outdoors together.

On the non-writing front, it's now Year Three of our five year garden renewal plan, and this summer's projects are deeper weeding around the grape arbors and high bush blueberries, continuing to fight back against the Japanese knotweed (extensive tarping has really helped) cutting down more of the small young trees crowding against our fence (we may get professional help with this) and, least but not least, building a firepit from a kit. I'm super excited about this and hope it doesn't wind up on the "There I Fixed It" blog.

Finally, along with the patio, I'd like to entertain a bit more this summer. We love having friends over, but without a central location for chairs, table and the grill, we usually limited our summer get-together to a float on the Saco River (also on my list!) Now, we have a nice space to gather, and since Ross loves to grill...


Reds, what's on your summer bucket list?

RHYS BOWEN: My summer plans? Loads of laundry after five weeks in Europe for starters. Then intense writing to finish current book. Then daughter and family arrive for three weeks, so house full of noisy teenagers. Then book launch for Crowned and Dangerous on August 2 and various events around the country. Then at the end of August I'm giving a speech on Mackinac Island. So not exactly a summer of lazy days on the porch!


JULIA: I don't know what vitamins you're on, Rhys, but I want some.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, yes, the pool will be open. I promise I will go in. Maybe..... But I will float! One of my favorite things is to get a book, and a pink grapefruit fizzy drink, and then and float and read  on a puffy raft in the pool. Looking forward to all kinds of summer food, (Roberta and Hallie will tell us what), and gin and tonics. Rose wine. Those wonderful days when the sun doesn't set until 9.  We'll go to Tanglewood a couple of times, and some book trips. But--I have to finish my next book. HAVE TO. And I confess, I am (at this moment) looking forward to it. That, of course, will change.



SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I am in "book jail" this summer — but we're still doing our annual trip to Rhode Island and I'm looking forward to a beach day with the family (authors in book jail occasionally get day passes if we make our word count) and then a lobster roll at Aunt Carrie's (best seafood ever). I'm also excited because my BFF Caitlin is coming to from San Francisco to New York (her daughter was accepted to the American Ballet Theatre's summer school) and they're going to be spending lots of time with us. It will be fun to watch our kids play together — and also nice to let Noel watch the kids and get some GIRLFRIEND time! Catching up, walking in the park, drinking wine, chatting away..... Also: fireflies. Love the late June and early July fireflies. So magical.


JULIA: Congrats to Caitlin's daughter! The ABT is serious ballet.


HALLIE EPHRON: Sadly my bucket list this summer includes FINISH THE BOOK, too. I have comments back from my editor and have to get it back to her August 1. But we are taking a much anticipated trip to Iceland for a week... because life in New England has too few Puffins in it. We'll also spend a few days at least on Peaks Island off the coast of Maine. And I need to make a Mexican style shrimp cocktail - poached shrimp swimming in a dressing of spicy tomato juice with hunks of avocado, sweet pepper, and fresh cilantro. We already had our first rootbeer floats.




LUCY BURDETTE: It's the summer of the family in my neck of the woods. We have 2 family weddings to attend, in California and North Carolina, plus our first grandchild due (also California), plus more family visitors. All should be great celebrations! I hope to be playing a little golf, walking a lot with Tonka, and making progress on a new book. (As of now, no one is waiting for it, but fingers crossed that changes.) We are already enjoying strawberries and rhubarb from the garden, cherries from the northwest, and produce from the farmers' market. I can't wait for local corn! (The photo is what was was left of my first strawberry-rhubarb crumble of the season.)



DEBORAH CROMBIE: Obviously, my summer is all about FINISH THE BOOK. Which will hopefully be in the next week or two, but then there will be edits and copy edits and page proofs. But once the manuscript is turned in, I want to do a few of the normal summer things. Hallie, the root beer float! Have ice cream, have root beer. Gee, I guess I could eat that while typing... I want to get my hillbilly hot tub set up and float around under the stars. I want to eat tomatoes (with everything.) Our farmer's market has been open since March, but we have yet to see a real vine-ripened tomato. I want to sit on my deck in the morning when it's lovely and shady, and I want to spend more time on my patio, playing with the dogs, instead of looking at it from the window.


And sometime this summer, I promise I'm going to get a photo of the sno-cone stand down the street at dusk, when their colored lights come on. This is a trailer and some picnic tables, with a string of lights in the trees. It's so tacky and small town. I love it, and every year I'm afraid it will be the last...




JULIA: Okay, if Hank doesn't float in her pool by the week before Labor Day, she's throwing a pool party for us. Hallie, you bring the ceviche, I'll bring a home-made blueberry pie, and Susan can make us cocktails. Deal?

How about you, dear Readers? What's on your summer bucket list?

The Ultimate Beach

RHYS BOWEN:  I have just returned from a vacation in Europe that included two weeks on a secluded bay in Corfu, a Greek island. Two weeks of doing very little except for sitting on my balcony reading, eating at bayside tavernas and lying in the warm waters of the Ionian sea. To make it more special our apartment belonged to the White House, which was where Laurence Durrell lived in the 1930s and where he wrote Prospero's Cell. Everything was perfect except the beach was stony, not sandy.

 So I realize I am being very picky but I started to wonder whether I had ever been to a perfect beach and what a perfect beach should look like.I once saw what I thought was a perfect beach near Darwin in northern Australia. But nobody was on it. I asked a park ranger whether it was okay to go swimming there. "Of course you can," she replied, "If you don't mind the sharks, the crocodiles or the jelly fish."
Okay, there are certain things the perfect beach shouldn't have. Sharks, crocodiles and jelly fish for starters.
But what should it have?
Clean water, for one thing. I went snorkeling on the island of Bali and was horrified to find so many plastic bags caught up on the coral.
It should be sandy. Have warm water. Some shade on hot days. A bar or cafe for moments of thirst. And not be crowded
.My contenders: the beach on Whitsunday Island, Queensland. Pure white sand. Tree lined. Only the occasional monitor lizard to make it scary.
Hanauma Bay on Oaha used to be a favorite until it became a national park and is now crowded with newby snorkelers.
The beach at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland is another favorite. Unfortunately my brother moved away, so I don't go there any more.
In Europe a little beach outside Nice (which is stony). It's called the Baie des Fourmies and is pretty darned nice.But in the US? California ocean water is all too cold for me. Some Florida beaches are contenders. Naples was nice but no shade.
So I'm open to suggestions:
What does your perfect beach have to have and where is it?

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm a California girl and spent summers body surfing in Malibu and Manhattan Beach, so those are still my perfect beaches. Broad white sand and wave after perfect wave that you can swim in front of, get picked up by, and carried forward so just your head sticking out as you coast onto the shore. Hold onto your bathing suit top.

LUCY BURDETTE: I was imprinted on the beach near Hatteras, NC, which is the end part of the Outer Banks. We went every summer and spent hours roasting on the sand, and swimming--big rollers usually, and a perfect cool temperature. We'd be out there floating in the salt water and game would be to call out whether each wave was an "over" or an "under." The overs you could float over the top. The unders would grind you into the sand if you didn't dive through them. And the dunes are stunning too, planted with sea oats.
Several families would go at the same time and we'd have enormous games of kick the can and pounce at night. Wonderful memories, gorgeous beach.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, yeah. Out of the US? Easy. Easy! Nevis. It is..white sand. Turquoise water.  EMPTY. The beaches are so unpopulated, they don't even have names. We named the one we go to, though. (Cleverly.) Beautiful Beach.  Which says it all. There are palm trees, and we sit and read and watch the pelicans fly and soar and pounce, then shake their little tailfeathers when they catch a fish. My idea of a perfect beach is peaceful. This photo is Nevis--but it's very faded. Just up the chroma to intense blue and white..and that's it!

In the US? Truro on Cape Cod.  We go to the bay beach, and it is gorgeous. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, so jealous I am green. Sigh. Especially since we haven't taken a beach vacation in longer than I even want to admit... I didn't grow up going to the beach. Dallas is a LONG way from beaches, and my parents were into golf courses, not beaches. (Sighs again...) But there have been beaches that stood out. We stayed at a lovely place at the tip of Cozumel. White sand, palms, little rush huts to protect you from the sun, clear blue water that was lovely for snorkling off the beach if you didn't mind the friendly barracuda that hung out occasionally. But my favorite was a beach in Puerto Rico. Empty (this was years ago, mind) with lovely sand and palms AND the best thing was the hammocks strung between the palm trees... Beach, hammock, book=heaven.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Not a well-known place, but the Canadian shore of Lake Erie is fantastic and where I went during the summer with friends while growing up in Buffalo, New York. These days, the family and I love the beaches of Narragansett, Rhode Island — which seems to be overlooked by tourists who opt for the Hamptons or the Cape (shhhhhh....). A day at the beach, then a lobster roll at Aunt Carrie's (now in its 95th year and going strong) — can't be beat.

And outside of the US, the beaches of the west coast of Scotland are beautiful, especially near Arisaig. (Yes, beaches in Scotland! No, I'm not joking!) The water is warmer than you might expect, thanks to a Gulf current passing by and the beaches are fine white sand and gorgeous! You may spot a seal!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, if you think California water is too cold, the Atlantic Ocean off the Maine coast would kill you! I want to propose a different kind of perfect beach: Old Orchard Beach, located in its eponymous town in southern Maine. It's a throwback to the old vacation beaches of the east coast: a seven-mile-long golden-sand beach with a century-old Boardwalk extending out into the ocean; an inexpensive, small scale amusement park, candy stores and ice cream stores and t-shirt shops in between art galleries and Italian sausage stands. It's definitely not about lounging in the sands with a cocoanut-flavored drink, but if you want to sample an old-fashioned all-American summer, you have to try it.

I met Jessie Crockett, whom many of you know from Crimebake, and in 2016 she's going to have a mystery set in 19th century OOB coming out. So I know what will be in my beach bag when I go there next summer!

RHYS: So there you have it. Our favorite beaches. Which is yours?

On Beaches

Jan: I grew up with a house on the Jersey shore - a great house with a waterview and only a block from the beach. I also spent an entire summer working at an ocean front beach club -- checking badges (a Jersey thing) by day and serving seaside cocktails (also maybe a Jersey thing) by night.

So I think I know beaches. And while I I love the white sand and great body surfing of the Jersey shore, my favorite beach is on Martha's Vineyard. The one above. It's called Long Point and its in West Tisbury. I like it because it has both a terrific ocean beach (that you can see) and a fresh water pond (not pictured) and when you go from the ocean to the pond, the pond feels incredibly warm. At the same time, it's refreshing, because it's washing the salt off.

You go to the Jersey beach for action, you go to Long Point for peace. At sundown, the view across the pond and marshes is incredibly tranquil. I used to picture it in my head during plane takeoffs to try to get me to stop hyperventilating. Sometimes it even worked.

There are downsides to the beach, the first being, you have to be a member of the Trustees For Reservation -- which is actually a terrific environmental organization -- or pay the day fee. And you have to get there before 11 a.m. or after 3 p.m. because its very limited parking. But that also means, the beaches are NEVER crowded. And although I don't think there's an actual rule about it -- no one ever brings a boom box. All you ever hear are children laughing (okay, sometimes crying) and the waves.

Anyway, EVERYONE has a favorite beach. Come tell us about yours.