Midsummer madness

It’s a symptom of the hysteria I’ve felt this week that I woke this morning a 5 a.m in an overheated room, now summer has tilted over the yardarm.

It’s a symptom of how overtired I am that, having collapsed on the sofa after a day quite like no other,  I feel so enraged at Tom for forgetting to open the window of the spare room I’ve recently reinstated from our erstwhile Italian lodger, so we can both capitalise on sleep. But then, Tom’s slightly broken himself. He’s was away midweek, in a Europe we are now ostracised from, so there’s no longer a Commission to complain to that we’ve both been putting in  overtime without pay.

It’s not as if I don’t rather enjoy having sole custody of the kids every now and again – I am better engaged, I make more effort, and feel like a hero once I’ve packed them off to bed. But throw in a little sleep deprivation and inclement weather and nerves quickly unravel and tempers fray.

Wednesday’s apocalyptic thunder ushered in a day from hell – walking out without my keys, tube closed, overcrowded buses and vexatious Uber drivers.  It was a relief to be rescued by an old fashioned cabbie and, for the first time I felt rather sore for him that globalisation is making him largely irrelevant on his own patch. It’s something we all must suffer in the end, but you can hardly blame him, and so many others  who feel swept aside in our brave and terrifying new world, for taking out their frustrations on those lower down the chain. I know I did, with the poor lodger when he left hairs on the bath, or forgot to lock the door on the loo. Shit, it’s true, sinks to the bottom, and we should all take care that our anger is not misdirected, as is sadly too often how it goes.

In a system as complex as London, it’s surprising how quickly things turn to shit when you add a little weather to the mix – and I suspect the rains are a harbinger of things to come. With more water in the atmosphere, June has become monsoon season, and this year it has been a watershed in more ways than one.

So many words have been spilt over Brexit that I won’t waste mine. I ranted enough on Facebook and lost at least one ‘friend’ over our unleashed, incautious views. Suffice it to say, Jonah cried at the news, and tried to wangle a day off school, but life goes on for all of us. And in the end, it was the newly washed brightness of the day as it dawned that secured my mood. The pathetic fallacy of it all worked in the outcome’s favour, as though the country’s heavy indecision shifted along with the clouds, buoying us up on the adrenaline of the moment: lighter, though less sure of ourselves, individually and as a nation. Those that had been in favour felt the world tilt on its access. Those who voted to leave wondered what on earth they had done.

Only Tom, back from a Europe that no longer exists and sifting through the debris in the City, saw through the fallout. It’s a ruse, he said. They are calling our bluff. By the end of the day, the markets proved him right, almost recovering in London while contagion spread to Continent and further afield. Prime Minister Boris, God forbid, is flexing his political muscle and perhaps, in the end he is right to. No doubt he will emerge victorious from this deal, made on the playfing fields of Eton, and secure the legacy his whole life has been working towards. It feels as though he has succeeded in check-mating the oppostion in what is, after all, just an epic game of chess. What will happen now to the recently ousted Italian lodger? After months of living with his experiments in E-Coli and unwiped splashbacks, I’m afraid I’m all out of cares.

For the rest of us, well, it’s all just office politics. Our opinions are largely unwanted; likely invalid. But, like the jobsworth who refuses to put in for cake, yet goes back for second helpings, I suspect as a nation we’ll be looked on less favourably, for all we may end up getting a promotion, in a long term economic boost.

Hey ho. For now, the sun is out and I may as well make the most of it for there are surely dark days ahead. Today brings good friends and local frivolity, but before that, I need to unwind myself from a week that has left us all a little overwrought – and for the time being a least, rather less well off. But, like many whose fear of seeming impolite prevents them from being practical, I can at least empathise with the national mood of hospitality wearing thin, for all I’m sad that Europe, invited with the best of intentions, is now rather rudely being shown the door.