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| Paige Toon |
Summer in America or England for the racing season there,
and then back home to Australia for yet another summer. I didn’t see a winter
until I was thirteen, and it was a couple of years later before my brother and
I witnessed snow for the first time – our excitement still feels tangible to me.
By then, we had left Australia and moved to England permanently, where my dad
had set up a racing team of his own. I was devastated to say goodbye to Australia
and my friends, and eventually I would write about being torn between two
countries in my debut novel, Lucy in the Sky.
Now, all these years later, I choose to live in England with a family of my own, even though I
have an Australian passport and my parents and brother returned Down Under when
I was in my early twenties. Many people have screamed ‘why?’ at me over the years. Yes, I miss my family and those same
childhood friends terribly. Yes, you can feasibly go to the beach after work
(unless you live inland, in which case seeing the ocean is as rare for some as
seeing the snow was for me). And yes, yes, yes, the sun shines more in Australia.
But much as I appreciated my upbringing, I don’t crave continuous summers.
Living in the UK makes me value the seasons. They say the English always talk
about the weather – of course we do, every sunny day feels like a celebration;
we don’t take them for granted.
This summer, well, I’ll be mostly in beautiful Cambridge
where we live. My parents and brother will be here from the other side of the
pond, we have four weddings to go to (hopefully no funerals), and I might even
attempt punting again on the River Cam (I tried it once and almost fell in –
total respect for the people who do this as a job). Most of all, I hope to do
no more than spend several sunny days in the garden with my two kids as they
splash around in the paddling pool. (No hosepipe ban here, although I still solemnly
swear to recycle the pool water for the veggie patch).
But as for the summer that most sticks in my memory, I have
to go back to 2007. I was heavily pregnant with my first baby, we had just
moved into a house, but had a stressful bridging loan because we hadn’t yet
sold our apartment. I was trying to write my second book, Johnny Be Good, and
just couldn’t get my head into it because I was so consumed with what impending
parenthood would bring (I ended up writing most of it in the three months after my baby was born). That August was
one of the worst in my memory, weather-wise. People kept assuming I’d be
delighted to not be heavily pregnant and
hot, but I felt as gutted as the rest of them that our days were perpetually
overcast. I don’t know if mid September can still be classed as summer –
probably not – but that’s when my son was born, and, challenging as the year
had been up until that point, in that moment, I can honestly say that everything
felt perfect. I hope you all have an amazing one this year.
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