The First Picnic of Summer

Guys, I’m calling it. Summer has arrived!

It’s been really quite boiling hot this week and whenever it gets really quite boiling hot, I want to be outside. There’s something fundamentally wrong about sitting on the sofa watching Modern Family when it’s 25 degrees outside, even if it is 11 o’clock at night and you’ve got an 8am meeting. A proper British summer is fleeting, so I’ll be damned if I’m not sitting in my garden with a G&T at every opportunity.

As a freelancer without the confines of a 9-5 working day, I have more opportunity than most to get outside when the sun shines… although you will find me working furiously every Saturday morning to make up for it, but we all know it rains at the weekends anyway. So when the temperature nudged into the 30s this week, I did a sweep of M&S Food and headed to my local park for a proper picnic.

I had a pretty good excuse for settling down to a picnic at 2.30pm on a Tuesday – the lovely folks at Barbour sent me one of their fancy new picnic rugs and after watching the (gorgeously dreamy) video on their site, I was genuinely excited to try it out. Because this is no ordinary picnic rug – it’s a poncho, a makeshift tent, a pillowcase, a dog blanket… I could go on. Even the bag it comes in doubles up as a drinks cooler!

Barbour also sent me a picnic hamper filled with summer essentials which I loaded up with more treats and then carefully unpacked onto that classic tartan.

Rob and I spent a glorious hour eating bread and cheese under a shady tree – it was so enjoyable I think picnics will be my lunch format of choice from now until September.

The Barbour picnic rug is limited edition with only 250 made, but there’s still chance to get your hands on one by tweeting a photo of your summer adventures using #barbourpicnicrug by 5th July. Good luck – maybe see you down the park next Wednesday at 12.30pm? I’ll save you a spot!