I hate the summer holidays.

I know 90s fashion has come back,
but this was surely never an actual 'look'?

I haven't always, I had a super happy childhood filled with paddling pools and the seaside and making mud 'jam' in the garden which was found years later in quite the stinky state...

I've begun dreading August since I left the rhythm of the academic year. I thought that I would feel all grown up, going to work while children played.  Like when you start using the word 'essay' when you're eleven to make your homework sound proper, little did you know that fifteen years later you'd be wishing like anything for a measly book report (Just me?).

I know I should be super duper grateful that I have the choice to take holidays at cheaper, less busy times of the year and I am.  Yet a set of insidious sadnesses creep in at this time of year when I'm doing my best to stay patient with the darling tourists who dawdle their way in a zigzag fashion across my intended path in town or scream at their overtired children in the supermarket.

It's certainly exacerbated when you live in a seaside holiday town. I'm not sure I can even describe it. I feel like I'm edging my way round the walls of a party I wasn't invited to, keeping my head down so no one susses me.  Like I was meant to go somewhere but missed the bus.

I probably sound like such a brat to those who have 6 or so weeks of juggling work and childcare and financial pressure and family commitments and weddings and trying to get a little rest in there somewhere.  It's not that I'm blindly jealous.  It really is simply a case of feeling... wrong.

At work no one seems to be at the end of their email, no deadlines are imminent and no decisions are made in August.  People are away or spending time with loved ones and many social groups and activities put everything on hold until September.

That's what gets at me... by not being part of the holiday thing, I'm on hold.  I can't carry on as normal yet I'm supposed to.  At its best it's bonus time to slow down and take stock, catch up on non urgent tasks and enjoy the warmer weather without having to go anywhere.  But at its worse, I feel wrong.  Like I don't fit, like I'm excluded.  (My thoughts on how childless adults get treated by our culture are not for now, but they are informed by times like these.)

Little me. Being profound, no doubt.

I have an obsessive need to find purpose in as much as possible and August sticks its fingers up at my futile attempts to get a fracking thing done.  I know, I know.  Chill out.  I'll try.  But even if it's something as silly as a summer holiday; it is easier to chill out when you feel part of something.

And that's not something I feel very often.