Summer 24 midlife lately catch-up

Continuing with my series of shorter posts, here’s a little summer 24 midlife lately catch-up but first I must just thank you profusely for all of the answers you gave to my question last week. I’m busy going through them and I’m so grateful to everyone who’s shared so much, please know that even though it’s anonymous I still feel honoured to have your confidence. I will try my utmost to pull something good from everything you’ve told me – for now though, here’s a slice of my summer 24 midlife lately.

As you know we decided not to travel far this summer. With two boys at home it felt like an unexpected opportunity to have a stolen family summer, one that I hadn’t really dared to hope for now that they’re all so busy with lives of their own. Although the eldest is fully fledged in London, the middle one has seemingly settled back into the nest and the youngest is at home until his final year starts in Leeds so I just want to be around and enjoy the buzz they bring (the mess… the trainers by every door… the endless task of managing the fridge less so – but it isn’t the worst downside to have).

There’s always so much impetus to spend summer away somewhere isn’t there? And yet I’ve found myself really enjoying the small, simple moments this year – working during the day and making the most of whatever’s around me for the rest of the time. Being at home has given me time to catch up with local friends that I haven’t seen for ages as well as old schoolmates who’ve been up here visiting their parents. And on the days when the sun’s shown it’s face, I’ve just been enjoying living where we do. You see summer’s short and I don’t want it to pass me by. When I look back that’s happened so often – the focus has been on the build-up to two weeks away with the time that follows feeling like a huge anti-climax. Summer is precious – even the 2024 ‘don’t go out without all season clothing’ edition!

Summer 24 midlife lately – life at home

As you know, a canal runs past the bottom of our garden and you saw Mal and the boys undertake a huge lockdown project back in 2020 to rebuild the decking down there. It’s now a lovely spot for watching the sun set with a glass of wine. We’d seized upon a warm evening here to have a barbecue and celebrate the return of the youngest’s girlfriend from her year abroad. She’s been working as a translator in Madrid so we hadn’t seen her since Christmas and it’s good to have her back. These two really enjoy the holidays because since they left school it’s the only time they don’t have to travel long distances to see each other – although I suspect that after their year abroad, Leeds to Durham will be a breeze.

I’m making a concerted effort to hit my 10k steps every day this summer – it’s too easy not to when you work from home. I’m working my way through the Headway app at the moment, the one that condenses a book down into 15 minutes so I get through quite a few non-fiction titles while I’m out. I’m not convinced by it though, as somebody who enjoys the ‘between the lines’ element of reading it feels as if all the nuance is lost in the compression process.

When it’s sunny Ted is always keen to suggest a pitstop at the pub in the next village which is well stocked with free dog biscuits and a good halfway point. Unsurprisingly, on those evenings Mal is happy to come too. I don’t have my headphones in then and I’m trying to really take note of the simple beauty of these still long summer nights. So here’s one of those moments – if you have sons or a dog you’ll know how highly prized a good stick find is on a walk. A wonky throw meant this one ended up in the canal and Ted doesn’t like water (I’m eternally grateful for that given where we live). So this was an anxious moment of rescue…

… and once retrieved there was no way he was going to leave it at the gate for another dog…

… it came all the way home.

The canal is such a big part of our daily life, we take it for granted but looking through my camera roll I realise just how much pleasure we get from it every single day. This little kayak was another lockdown restoration project – the eldest found it broken and discarded so Mal was roped in to help to rebuild it. The young lady you can see on the bank is one who’s always popped in and out a lot because she lives close by – she’s been the youngest’s partner in crime since their very first primary school days. During term time she’s away at uni in New York on a soccer scholarship and she brought her New Yorker girlfriend home for her first taste of English village life this summer.

And this was last Sunday, walking home after a spur of the moment family barbecue with my friend Nicky and her boys. You may remember her son Toby and Liv’s wedding two summers ago. Well now they’re expecting their first baby so they’re going to be a very young mum and dad – Toby is 23, the same age as our middle one. Poor Liv is suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, the extreme morning sickness that Kate Middleton had and they’ve moved back in with Nicky and Roy. So Nicky’s house is very full because her eldest settled back at home after uni too. As you travel deeper into midlife you realise that life’s script holds surprises at every page turn don’t you?!

Dress (now in the sale, gifted SS24); sandals

In summer, village life often feels exactly what I hoped it would be. People are out and about and I can really make the most of having the sea on one side, fields on the other and the canal in between. As winter approaches it will all change. From November to May it’s the big retreat indoors so for now I’m making a very conscious effort to savour dogs with sticks and boys with boats, friends popping in and out of open gardens… the very simplest of pleasures.

Summer 24 midlife lately – out and about

As part of this whole summer at home project I’ve focused on finding music events that aren’t too far away and peppered the calendar with them – perhaps a bit too enthusiastically because we now have something every weekend until November – but that’s me shutting my ears to any whisper of autumn drawing near. I’m slowly starting to play around with what any kind of retirement might look like. It isn’t imminent, I have no plans to slow down on the work front for at least another ten years and even then I think I’ll continue part time, I suspect I just need to have that kind of purpose in life. However I already know that it won’t be the endless long haul travel experience that the retirement ads suggest so I’m deliberately trying to find good stuff closer to home.

So we headed over to Leeds a couple of weekends ago and some of you lived through this on Instagram Stories with me. We’re still to travelling by train whenever we can and our nearest station has a picturesque country line that goes straight there. I’ve told you about it before, it’s the station where Brief Encounter was filmed and so it’s a lovely place to wait. We always get there early because the atmospheric tea room serves great food and cakes so here we were, about to relax over breakfast…

Racer tee (now in clearance); track pants (now in the sale); gold Samba OGs

… which we did and even though it was a very wet day, I managed to put lots of pretty videos on Instagram. But as we went down to the underpass to cross to the opposite platform, everything started to flood – it just sums up summer 2024 really doesn’t it?!

Racer tee (now in clearance); track pants (now in the sale); gold Samba OGs; Me+Em cardigan past season

So we had to rethink things quickly – there was nothing for it but to get back into my car which was parked outside and drive there instead. In the picture above you can see there was another poor stranded passenger trying to get to Leeds so we adopted him as our rescue-son. He was the same age as our boys and was trying to get to his best friend’s birthday pub crawl – they were doing the Otley Run that you saw us undertake with our boys last year so we had to get him there! When I asked if he felt safe in the car with us, he said he’d just texted his friends to ‘pray for me’ which made me chuckle. And after he told us our music was cool, Mal put him on the family WhatsApp and he ended up having a stream of cheeky banter with our boys so at least that made the journey go quicker.

The road from Lancashire to Yorkshire is never good – there’s always a long delay for some reason or another, I’m sure it’s lined with lingering spirits from the Wars of the Roses ensuring that never the twain shall met. In the end we got there with just enough time to scrub the brown mud off our legs and throw our disco stuff on (by the way for those who liked it, this gold tee has just been restocked – and in silver too). We were going to The Love Train which is the Brutus Gold disco event that first started back in 1989. We’ve had bad luck with it being cancelled before so we couldn’t believe we’d actually made it this time. It’s a full on disco spectacular, cheesy and yet not cheesy because the music’s so good. I’d originally planned to wear my rainbow sequin jumpsuit but it was taking place outside and just too chilly to have a bare back…

Gold tee; sequin trousers (preloved from Vinted)

… and this still makes me smile. I was taking a photo of Mal when I saw this lot approaching and I knew what was going to happen – you can see here that he’s wondering why I’m suddenly grinning away to myself…

… and then he realised…

… and made the most of his moment…

… so I thought I’d better claim him quickly before he was swept into the night!

Gold tee; sequin trousers (preloved from Vinted); earrings; Boden sunglasses SS22

It was such a good evening, I hardly have any photos but just imagine grooving away in the cordoned off city centre with lots of other joyful midlifers. It was the highlight of our summer so far.

And the great thing is that these things finish at 11pm so you can be up and out the next morning for some quick culture before your (horribly expensive) city centre parking expires. Armanious at Henry Moore? Interesting, abstract sculpture playing on the notion of originality – we didn’t have enough time to do the gallery properly.

M&S linen waistcoat SS23; Boden linen trousers SS23; Sunglasses

And I have lots more summer midlife lately to tell you about but I’m going to save it for next week. In the meantime can you send a wish over to Australia? I’ve told you before about Kevin, my nephew-in-law and the youngest’s godfather, you met him last year when he did the Otley run with us (in the middle at the back).

He was married to my wonderful niece Kay who sadly died aged 30 after a long fight with leukaemia. She was, of course, irreplaceable and so for the last 21 years Kev has dedicated himself to his career in psychiatric nursing and his sport. And today we’re bursting with pride and anticipation because he’s representing Team GB in the World Triathlon Championships (60-64 age group) over in Queensland, Australia. He’s such a midlife inspiration; despite his lifelong loss and heartbreak he’s kept going and filled his years not with the family life he and Kay imagined but with a different kind of purpose, raising money for so many charities along the way. Making it onto the GB Team has taken years of commitment and training, he’s competing in Australia now and then France next month.

So go Kev – the whole family’s behind you, we’re so proud of you for getting so far. And I know that as you set off, Kay will be there with you too… she’ll be the wind behind your wheels.

That’s everything for this week, we’re heading down to spend the weekend in London with the eldest. Oh and by the way I’ve just seen a request for my email address in last week’s responses – as always it’s nikki[at]midlifechic.co.uk – replacing the [at] with @ (I look forward to hearing from you Sam). Enjoy the sunshine and I’ll be back next week.

Disclosure: ‘Summer 24 midlife lately catch-up’ is not a sponsored post

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