June arrives without asking,
a pale stretch of morning
that starts before you’re ready.
The light gets up early here,
nosy and persistent,
peering through the curtains
as if to check you’re still alive.

The days go long and lanky,
hours spilling everywhere,
refusing to end at a sensible time.
The air warms, sort of,
in that half‑hearted Scottish way;
soft enough for a T‑shirt,
cold enough that you keep the jumper
tied round your waist
“just in case.”

Grass thickens underfoot,
wildflowers elbow their way in,
and the midges rise like a warning
from the underworld.
Evenings stretch and stretch,
the sky holding on to its colour
long after it should have let go.
You walk through it all
with that familiar mix
of gratitude and suspicion,
knowing fine well
the weather could turn
in the time it takes
to blink.

But still,
there’s something in June here
that feels like a truce.
A brief, generous pause
in the year’s usual argument.
It’s a chance to breathe,
to stand in the long light,
to let the land remind you
that even in this place
of sideways rain and sudden cold,
summer does come.
It just arrives
in its own stubborn way.