Before London Turns Grey Again

Every year, summer seems to arrive with an unreasonable amount of expectation attached to it. We are apparently supposed to spend three uninterrupted months sitting on terraces, swimming somewhere fabulous, attending garden parties and looking suspiciously good while doing all of it.

The reality is usually rather less cinematic.

You work. You get tired. It rains for four consecutive days. You spend a Saturday doing laundry. Suddenly someone mentions September and you realise half the things you said you wanted to do this summer remain firmly in the category of things I said I wanted to do this summer.

I’ve been particularly guilty of that this year. There has been a lot of thinking about the future lately — work, home, what comes next — and perhaps not enough attention paid to the perfectly good life happening in the meantime.

So, with a few weeks of summer still left, I’ve decided I’m not quite ready to surrender to autumn.

I don’t need an extravagant bucket list or a last-minute flight to the Amalfi Coast. I just want a handful of things in the diary that make an ordinary week feel a little more interesting: an exhibition I’ve been meaning to see, somewhere new for dinner, a long walk somewhere beautiful, perhaps a very good martini while it’s still light outside.

So, before London turns grey again, these are the things I still want to do.

See something before it disappears

There is something particularly motivating about an exhibition having a closing date. I’ve become very good at seeing something advertised, thinking I’d love that, and then remembering it approximately three days after it has finished.

So before summer ends, I want one proper gallery afternoon.

No rushing around trying to fit six exhibitions into one day. No turning culture into an endurance sport. Just one exhibition I genuinely want to see, followed by somewhere lovely for a coffee or glass of wine and enough time to actually think about what I’ve just looked at.

At the top of my list is David Hockney at the Serpentine.

I love the idea of giving an exhibition an entire afternoon rather than treating it as something to squeeze between appointments. Art deserves a little lingering.

Eat somewhere I’ve never eaten before

London makes it extraordinarily easy to fall into the habit of returning to the same five places while approximately 700 new restaurants open around you.

There are always restaurants saved somewhere on my phone that I’ve been meaning to try, so I’m choosing one and actually making the reservation.

For me, Langosteria feels perfectly fitting.

Excellent food, a beautiful room and enough atmosphere that getting dressed for dinner feels justified — which, frankly, is part of the pleasure.

There are few things I enjoy more than having somewhere nice to go and an excuse to put on something beautiful.

Explore a part of London I don’t know properly

It’s remarkably easy to live in London and repeatedly experience only your own tiny section of it.

After six years in one area, you stop really looking at it. You know which supermarket you’re going to, which route you’re taking and exactly where you’re getting your coffee. Convenience is wonderful, but novelty does something entirely different to you.

So I want to take myself somewhere I don’t normally go and walk without much of an agenda.

Maybe west along the Thames. Maybe Richmond. Maybe somewhere I’ve previously only ever travelled through on the way to somewhere else.

No itinerary. No need to optimise the day. Just walk, look around, stop somewhere interesting and see what I find.

Have one ridiculously lovely London afternoon

Not an event. Not networking. Not something that is supposed to be productive.

Just an afternoon that exists because being alive is allowed to be enjoyable.

Put on something beautiful. Go somewhere pretty. Order the thing you actually want. Sit outside if London has graciously provided seventeen consecutive minutes without rain. Read something. People-watch. Walk home slowly.

I’ve spent enough of this year thinking about what I should be doing.

I’d quite like to spend an afternoon doing something for no greater reason than I fancied it.

Do something slightly unexpected

There are things I’ve lived beside for years and somehow never actually done.

An outdoor cinema. A late-night museum. A boat somewhere. A tiny concert. Swimming somewhere beautiful. Something a little odd, spontaneous or wonderfully unnecessary.

The criteria are simple: it should make me think, How have I lived here this long and never done that?

Sometimes the best way to fall back in love with a city is to stop behaving as though you already know it.

Sneak out of London altogether

Yes, I realise this is technically cheating.

But perhaps one of the best things to do in London before summer ends is… leave London.

Just for a weekend.

I keep thinking about the Cotswolds or Cornwall — somewhere green, slower and quiet enough that London feels very far away for 48 hours.

A beautiful hotel, a long walk, somewhere lovely for dinner, perhaps a book I’ve been meaning to finish. No enormous itinerary and certainly no frantic attempt to “see everything”.

Just a change of scenery.

There’s something deeply restorative about leaving your normal environment for a couple of days and remembering that life can move at a completely different pace.

And then, ideally, coming back to London actually pleased to see it again.

Take myself on one very long walk

This one costs precisely nothing.

Headphones, comfortable shoes, no particular urgency and perhaps a destination at the end involving cake.

London is extraordinarily good on foot. You can start somewhere completely ordinary and suddenly find yourself beside the river, in a garden, staring at an absurdly beautiful house or discovering a street you’ve somehow missed for years.

And I think I’ve underestimated recently how restorative it is simply to go somewhere without needing to achieve anything when I arrive.

Not every walk needs to count towards something. Sometimes you can just keep going because the weather is nice and you want to see what’s around the next corner.

And, if I’m feeling particularly indulgent…

I would very much like to investigate the new Six Senses London spa.

This is perhaps stretching the definition of an essential end-of-summer experience, but it looks completely divine and sometimes wellness means considerably more than drinking green juice and going to Pilates.

Sometimes wellness is putting on a robe, disappearing into a beautiful spa for several hours and refusing to answer your phone.

I’m willing to conduct the necessary research.

And finally, leave something undone

Because perhaps that’s the point.

I don’t actually need to squeeze every last possible experience out of August.

There will be another restaurant. Another exhibition. Another sunny afternoon. Another summer.

Having things to look forward to isn’t evidence that the present is somehow insufficient. Sometimes it’s simply a way of reminding yourself that life extends beyond whatever happens to be consuming you right now.

So this isn’t really a summer bucket list.

It’s a small reminder to myself to stop occasionally, look up and enjoy where I already am.

And perhaps, every now and then, go somewhere entirely different.

Preferably before I need a coat.