I’ve not been sleeping much, lately. It’s hot and the baby is thirsty. The other morning I was bleary and worn thin and the day seemed long and as I walked up the stairs I clocked that one of the poppies in the gravel garden had opened. It had been trampled on by the carpenter and I’d planned to dig it up and give it some time to recuperate elsewhere, but here it was: pale pink petals crumpled like drying bedlinen.

As I commented on Instagram that morning, it sometimes feels like poppies have opened exactly when I’ve needed them to. Today marks seven years since the break-up that I think of as something of an apex in my life: an ending of one thing, a starting of something else. It’s not an anniversary I mark, as such, but it’s a time of year that I tend to reflect on when it comes around. During the first raw days of that break-up a white poppy opened against the rain-slicked box of my first balcony, and it was the beginning of new beginnings. That poppy, freshly opened, felt a bit like a flickering bulb in a dark time. The one I caught the other morning was a cup of light to start another day with. Both brought courage.

I wrote a book in the wake of that break-up, about what happened next. It’s called Rootbound, Rewilding a Life and while I’d hate to be prescriptive about these things, I often think that right now is the ideal time to read it: the book starts in June and turns through a year.

It has been hot, and the baby has been thirsty. I’ve been meaning to write something new all day, but there have been podcasts to record and laundry to bundle into the machine and flies to swat at. So here is an offering from another time, instead. If you like it, you can buy Rootbound here.

The first hit of summer in the city lands with the same high pressure that causes it. Brick walls soak up the unexpected sun, tarmac shimmers with the bake of it. We are sweaty,  accidentally bundled up in our tights and coats and boots. A giant palm has been laid above us all and we celebrate by flocking  outdoors, to the gardens and parks, to crack open tinnies in a  million hissing gasps. We know it won’t be hot for long.

People tend to forget how wet and showery June can be. A sunny weekend early in the month, oft declared a heatwave by certain newspapers, will usher the summer open – even though the solstice, the tipping point between light and dark, won’t arrive for weeks. But rain will follow, it always does. It’s the combination of both the surprising blister of heat and the runaway gurgle of  persistent rain that allows the plants to grow.

Because June is fertile. There is a pause between the dainty abundance of spring and the heft of summer in its peak. In June, things are growing and gangly, on the cusp of riotous change. Hollyhocks spring up from the earth, looming on kerbsides. Tree-lined roads appear to shrink as the boughs fatten with leaves. Grasses become wild and swaying, there to catch the back of knees. Roses explode in softness and scent, ready to become heavy with rainwater. There are so many buds that, after wind and rain, some end up on the pavement, offering a crunch under  passing feet. Everywhere is green and teeming and eager with it, this burgeoning sense of new life. The solstice nears, tipping the  world on its axis. It changes the shape of the days we fill with  everyday things.