We’ve gone from summer to winter in the course of an afternoon

Wearing shorts last week in a mid-October heatwave, having worn shorts continuously since March, Les Murray’s poem ‘The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever’ seemed achievable. Would we still be in shorts on Christmas Day, I wondered? Better still, no socks? I recently met an English chap who stated in all seriousness that his main reason for emigrating to the South of France was to stop wearing socks and he hadn’t put a sock on for 30 years.

But at the exact moment when the dream of wearing shorts forever looked possible, it was winter. As I put it to the woman in the boulangerie the next morning: ‘Yesterday afternoon I went upstairs for a snooze. I fell asleep in summer and when I woke up it was winter.’ It was true. The seasons fast forwarded in two hours from ‘Adlestrop’ to ‘The Darkling Thrush’. She laughed heartily at an Englishman caught napping by the weather. To her it was a perfectly normal transition.

The seasons had fast-forwarded in two hours from ‘Adlestrop’ to ‘The Darkling Thrush’

Sunless Provence is grim. The locals go from semi-nudity to dressing like Nanook of the North. I followed suit. It was out with the Barbour Northumberland, which the man in the shop had warned was too warm even for Northumberland these days. Back into the cupboard went the light sandals; out came the heavy boots; on went the dreaded socks.

On that first day of my resumption of shoes and socks, I thought anxiously of my 11-year-old grandson. That same day he was starting at a new school, also wearing new shoes and socks, sent by his loving grandad via Amazon. (His poor mum has temporarily given up the struggle of looking after five kids, and he has gone to live with his father, who lives 150 miles away.)