How to have a perfect summer day: Kingston, ON

From the moment I stepped off the plane in Canada, the weather gods decided to gift me with a full week of the most perfect summer weather. As luck would have it, one of the quintessential summery days coincided with my time in Kingston where two of my pals played hookey from work and together we achieved a major accomplishment – we had the perfect summer day.

As the warm summer months stretch out before us, with infinite potential for achieving the perfect summer day, I thought I would put together a fool-proof 15 step guide to the perfect summer day.

Step 1: Coffee (obviously) and delicious breakfast

Step 2: Bike over to your pal’s house (because in the perfect summer world, you live only a few blocks from your best friends and can hop on a tandem bike to take on the day).

Step 3: Get supplies. Most can be procured from a dollar store – ridiculous floral hat, a large box of sidewalk chalk.

Step 4: Find a patio. Eat food. Drink beers and icy lemon water.

Step 5: Lie on a blanket in the park. Listen to good music on tiny speakers.

Step 6: Make the most epic hopscotch you have ever seen. Hop. Bonus points if you get ducks and/or strangers to do the hopscotch. Spread joy.

(Be sure to include at least one DANCE BREAK on said hopscotch. It is most important).

Step 7: Eat ice cream.

Step 8: Fly a kite.

Step 9: Get said kite stuck in tree. Spend a long time extracting said kite from tree. Celebrate at unlocking one of life’s hardest achievements (getting a kite free from a towering tree). Make friends with a small child in a BANANA romper (honestly – where can I get myself one of these!? Please hook a sister up!)

Step 10: Find a good climbing tree. Sit in said tree.

If possible, be sure to pose in such a way that it could be the album art of an upcoming summer indie hit ep.

Step 11: Eat freezies.

Step 12: Force cuddle something fluffy.

Step 13: Swing. Find an empty swingset in a park, pump as high as you can go, and lean back to watch the late afternoon sun filter through the leaves of a tree.

Step 14: Have a campfire in the back yard. S’mores (obviously).

Step 15: Go to sleep smelling vaguely of stale smoke and pure joy.

With the infinite possibility of summer ahead of us, I have no doubt that you too will have the unparalleled pleasure of discovering the recipe for a perfect summer day. And when you find it, stop for a moment. Breathe it in. Feel the warmth of the sun on your ghostly pale winter skin. Bask in the simplistic perfection. Savour the sweetness, then watch it drift away on the breeze, like a puff of dandelion fluff. Shimmering, perfect, fleeting, everything.