"The Promise of Summer" by Kathleen Baird-Murray from Vogue UK June 2013
"It's the looking forward - to the sunny day ahead, to the moment where any pub with an outside terrace is full to the brim from 5pm on a weekday, bursting with the sound of flirtatious laughter ricocheting around the neighbourhood; to feeling sea salt drying on your skin in the sun; to wearing a wide-brimmed hat and not having to grip on to it all day long in case it blows away; to wearing your favourite summer clothes season after season and realising their fading in the sun has only improved their character; to not having to wear foundation or tights; to admiring girls who lie in parks in bikinis and just don't care; to to seeing the dust float as if through laser beams in a sun-filled room; to finding that the best bit of Glyndebourne is the picnic, checking out everyone's outfits; to that hit of jasmine bushes as you walk past suburban gardens; to making fresh lemonade and pouring it into Pimm's; to hearing the plip-plop of balls pining backwards and forwards on a court and wondering it it's not too late to take up tennis again - it's these things that make the promise of summer so resonant. On those rare days when it's not raining, that is."