A very English summer

I have figured out a few things in the past couple of days:

1) The official start of seasons always seemed off to me, living in the southern US, but this year it all makes perfect sense. As if on cue, the weather has changed in the UK to accommodate the official calendar start of seasons. It doesn't always happen this way, but this year we are experiencing all four (!) seasons in London. Right now, we are on summer and actually have the heat and sunshine to prove it! I'm not a huge fan of hot weather, though I appreciate actually having the seasonal weather to match the time of year.

2) I like tennis. We went to the Wimbledon tournament this past weekend and saw some great athletes. Though the day was long, I really got into the tennis. Previously, Wimbledon would be something I would flick past on a Saturday afternoon and watch for a little while if it was an exciting game, nothing more. Now, I might pay more attention to the sport, or at least during Wimbledon.

3) We indulged in two of the the three things that are the epitome of an English summer: Pimm's and lemonade and strawberries and cream. (The other is barbecues.) Ok, the strawberries and cream might be specific to Wimbledon, though strawberries have been flooding the grocery stores for the past month and continue to do so throughout summer.

As there have been so many strawberries around, I have wanted to do something with them. But they never seem to last long around me. I (almost) literally wolf them down with a drenching of cream, or dip them in powdered sugar.

I sincerely love strawberries and eating them with cream just seems to make me think of the carefree days of summer during childhood, a light summer breeze and dappled sunshine, tea parties and sun dresses. Maybe it is that strawberries and cream is so pure and good without needing anything else save a splash of sugar that throws me back to a playful and younger state, days when the sunshine meant playtime.

This is most definitely my dessert of choice for the English summer.

May Day

I went to a college in the US with a Welsh name and which still carried on many of the British traditions- college robes, fur on the collar at graduation, and May Day. At Bryn Mawr, my undergraduate college, May Day was a wonderful combination of Wimbledon and a country town May Day fete. We would start the day off with strawberries and cream (like Wimbledon), have a parade, dance around the May pole and have a general festival all day out on the green (like a town fete).

Some of the towns in the British countryside still have festivals for the May day celebration, which is also a bank holiday weekend in the UK. I get the feeling that in London it is more of a long weekend than a true celebration anymore and most people just appreciate the extra day of sleeping in and hope for enough sun to sit in the garden.

There is another meaning behind May Day that I never knew until I moved here- the day of worker strikes and protests. This may happen more on the European continent than here, but on Saturday (May Day as in May 1st) there was a huge protest march of British workers and unions through central London as it is a traditional thing to do for May Day. Maybe they chose May because it was better weather than other months? Maybe it is the double meaning of May Day that is too good to pass up for protest signs? I don't know the history of the worker protests on May Day, but I do know that I was trying to get across London on Saturday and the protests made that incredibly difficult.

In amongst the worker prostests and town fetes, I brought a little bit of the Bryn Mawr May Day festival to London this year, carrying on from another alumna's celebration last year. Although it was supposed to be in a park, the weather did not cooperate and I ended up hosting a small gathering of alumnae at my flat. We had strawberries and cream, champagne and owl sugar cookies and were going to watch The Philadelphia Story, another Bryn Mawr May Day tradition, but never had the time.

I saw an owl cookie cutter (and teapot) a year or so ago and snatched it up to make these cookies.

I love sugar cookies anyway, though in my family we usually reserved them for Christmas cookies and I did not get to eat them a lot. As my school's mascot is an owl, here was a perfect opportunity for owl cookies!

I also got a bit crafty and decorated with white icing.

Even though my time in London has changed me more than I can ever change it, I like to think that I am bringing a little bit of me and what I know to at least a few people here, and sharing my May Day is part of that.