Summertime blues

Summertime blues. I've hit a painful bump in the road and they’ve been around recently. The French word for a bruise is un bleu, the same word as is used for the colour, and "bruised" pretty much sums it all up.

It has started me thinking though about blue, the word and the associated state of mind with its melancholy connotations.

And in contrast, I've been noticing the colour which from my perspective is soothing, cooling, receptive, healing …

Blues, seen and remembered:

• my mother's two blue and white mugs which passed to me on her death - I wouldn't drink my morning coffee (black, no sugar, very hot) out of anything else;
• delicate forget-me-not blue;
• Philippe’s kind sky-blue eyes;
• vibrant, iridescent electric blue;
• the flash of kingfisher blue glimpsed as the little bird swoops across the stream;
• sophisticated and grown-up navy blue;
• a flotilla of blue-sailed yachts on the Thames passing under Vauxhall Bridge;
• velvety midnight blue;
• feathery, soft grey-blue;
• the “wine-dark sea” - the deep, intense yet light-filled blue of the Mediterranean around the Greek islands.

An orchestra of different shades and tones, but all playing the same blue tune.

I may be a bit glum, but blue isn’t downbeat. On the contrary.