An ode to late summer.

the place I feel most at home.

Hello I’m Lyndsay, I am so glad you have found your way here…

Welcome to Story & Thread., a cosy, welcoming place to be inspired by the quiet power of noticing beauty & wonder. Here we explore our creative lives through the lens of the seasons, and what it means to tell our stories with meaningful PR.

All subscribers will receive regular thoughtful posts about mothering, creativity, home and garden through the seasons. You are invited to become a member of The Beauty Thread., to join a creative community for online seasonal gatherings, home guides, co-working spaces and soon, guidance for crafting a considered PR kit for your creative business.

Read on for details of a special late summer birthday offer…

Late summer dahlias.

"It is the glistening autumnal side of summer.”

—Henry David Thoreau.

Dearest reader…

How has your summer been (so far)? It feels like a long time since I have been able to put pen to paper/fingers to keys and write to you — it is safe to say that the summer holidays have made their presence known in these parts…!

Instead of berating myself for not being able to carve out the pockets of time, or truthfully the energy, as I usually would — I have been leaning into the gift of spending this time with my family and allowing myself to soak it in fully, without worrying too much about what I haven’t been able to do in the fullness of these summer days. Although there is a twinge of frustration when I think about the trails of thought that have been interrupted, and what has been put on hold, summer seems to whisper that it’s ok to let go a little, for things to unravel and be left undone for a while…

Whilst I have not found the space for the words to come, it feels like there is a lot to catch up on. Since I last wrote, we have been on a couple of trips — to visit my parents in France, and for a family holiday to Mallorca. Though neither were at all relaxing (!), it was wonderful to spend this precious time together, and to immerse ourselves fully in different surroundings for a while.

The rest of my summer has been spent with my children (aside from some time set aside for my freelance PR work) and has embodied the blend of ‘magic and mayhem’ that I have become intimately familiar with in these early mothering years — featuring some lovely low key local days and some special day trips (all to a soundtrack of Taylor Swift or Matilda: The Musical); alongside much sibling bickering, intense emotions, wild escapades, and other such challenges to my sanity.

Last weekend however, I felt my sanity restored (at least temporarily) when I ventured to the Garden Museum for ‘Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party’ exhibition with two of my oldest, dearest friends. We were all captivated by the creativity that was woven through this man’s life (admittedly with a significant dash of privilege thrown in), how the simple contemplation of beauty was central to his way of being, and how he expressed it through his home and garden, and his iconic work as a photographer, set designer and costumier, leaving an enduring influence on the arts, and society.

In the courtyard at the Garden Museum.

As three women working in creative industries, we spoke about how we so often relegate our roles and personal pursuits of beauty to being frivolous, unnecessary, or of lesser importance — and that instead, they hold great potency in bringing us into relationship with ourselves, and with the world around us. When we encounter what we perceive as beauty, we are filled with wonder, awe and inspiration, igniting our intuition and unlocking our deepest knowing.

Perhaps making the pursuit of beauty a priority (without apology) more often would allow us see the details of our lives through a different lens — elevating the mundane to the sacred, the ordinary to the extraordinary, demanding a new layer of care and reverence for the world around us, our place in it, and in everything we do. Perhaps rather than an afterthought, beauty is a good place to begin from. All of this is of course, the ethos behind The Beauty Thread., membership here at Story & Thread. — a place to tend and tell our stories inspired by the quiet power of noticing beauty and wonder. (Details of a late summer joining offer below…)

Early September this year marks my 40th birthday and it feels right to celebrate the beauty of late summer as the place I feel most at home, and it’s potency as a magical, earthy, transformational portal.

Entering my 40s as an avant gardener.

I will be leaning into the season of late summer at The Beauty Thread. with a special edition of A Storied Home. in late summer, and an extra Gather & Tend. co-working session on 10th September — a chance for us to come back together to reflect on the long summer days, and listen to the whispers ushering us to turn inward to tend to our creative heart work and inner dreamscape once again. I can’t wait to catch up and hear your summer stories…

To mark my 40th birthday I am offering you the chance to pay just 40% of the original subscription cost (i.e. 60% off) forever to join The Beauty Thread. — making it just £2 per month or £18 for a year’s membership (rather than £45). The offer runs from now up until the autumn equinox on 22nd September 2025, I hope you will join us, you would be so welcome.

The beauty of late summer.

There is so much beauty manifest in the glory of late summer (recognised as an officially distinct fifth season by Traditional Chinese Medicine, running from around the third week of August until the autumn equinox on 22nd September¹). Unquestionably there is something about the gentle shift into late summer that speaks to my September-born soul and feels like home.

Late summer in Golders Hill Park.

As the energy of summer wanes, late summer feels like a soft, hazy, liminal phase bridging the expansive, long, light days of summer with the introspective, cooler and cosy autumn days ahead. According to TCM, late summer corresponds with the earth element and represents abundance, stability, comfort, and nourishment. The late summer container provides a home and a sanctuary of stillness to rest and digest, reflect and ground as we begin to gather ourselves inwards, and harvest all we have gained from the growth seasons.

Glimmers in the garden.

For me, this late summer buffer between seasons is very welcome. Rather than rushing ahead into autumn and feeling as though I should be ready for the next chapter, it is a relief to know that late summer provides a space to fully absorb and process the summer months which so often go by in a blur.

Work-wise too, there is a lot I would like to have had in place by this time in the calendar but summer seems to have different demands, and in reality I will only be able to re-centre and meet myself again fully when the new school year begins. For now, late summer is giving me permission to absorb the glow, to feel the shimmer a little longer, to find that it is not all over as we reach the end of August.

A rare peaceful moment in the garden.

Late summer is its own magical entity, a time capsule, gradually turning down the volume and fading the vibrancy around us, in order to turn up the clarity of our inner vision. It is a liminal space requiring nothing more than a slow, gentle return — to sift and refine the outline of our dreams for the darker days ahead.

And it is a reminder that, as always, there is still time…

An ode to late summer.

I was born in the last days of summer.

I feel most at home when the sun slips lower in the sky — tracing the horizon line with molten gold.

When the darkness lingers before dawn breaks, and the garden glimmers with fairy lights in the early evening.

Whilst the days are still long and warm, but within them lies an ancient knowing that nothing lasts forever.

Japanese anenomes and faded hydrangeas in the garden.

I sit comfortably in the fullness of the late summer moons.

I am soothed by the softness of the moths and bats that take flight at dusk, and the silken spider webs that glisten with morning dew.

I find solace in the shadows that are stretching out before me — signs of autumn’s mysticism that lie in the quieter corners of summer.

The garden in late summer.

A return to the garden in late summer is my homecoming — when the palette becomes patinated and timeworn, when bright young petals are cast with a spell of faded glamour.

When lilac clusters of asters and their star-like petals start to appear on the dark green foliage, as if studded across a velvet night sky.

As the perfect saucers of cosmos sway and spin in the breeze between the swathes of pastel pink Japanese anenomes.

And the sweet peas continue to climb and tumble, whilst the lavender begins to fade — the scents of both, soon to become a summer memory, bottled for the days ahead.

In the dahlia cutting patch.

I am most at home when I am wandering through fields of dahlia jewels, and the hydrangeas become tinged with time.

When leaves begin to curl at their edges and start to find their way to the ground, tarnished and rusting ahead of their kaleidoscopic transformation.

Sunlight, bronze on the earth, reveals the fullness as well as the fading.

I am complete when the apple, pear and plum trees are laden with fruit, and the brambles are bursting with blackberries like ink blots.

A seasonal shift.

I am happiest in sandals and a cardigan. When my feet meet the soft earth, in gratitude, noticing the growth that it has taken to reach this moment.

I sit at the altar of this year’s fruits in honour of Demeter, earth goddess of the harvest, before the dwindling light signals that it’s time to gather, wrap up and step indoors.

I linger in the honeyed haze of summer whilst longing for cosy days ahead — a deep exhale ushers in the sweetest of endings and beginnings.

In late summer stillness, I feel the air become hushed, like a whisper of what is to come — and soon everything is changed.

Afternoon light in late summer.

Thank you so much for reading. The idea for my ode to late summer was inspired initially by Summer Bones by Emory Hall — do you feel most at home in the season you were born in?

I would love to hear how your summer has been, and how you are finding this shift into late summer, towards autumn…?

Sending late summer love,

P.S. Find out more about The Beauty Thread., the paid membership space filled with creative seasonal gatherings and co-working sessions, seasonal home guides and considered storytelling and PR, within Story & Thread. — you can read or listen to more by clicking the link below…

Introducing The Beauty Thread. by Lyndsay.

Tending and telling our stories inspired by the quiet power of noticing beauty & wonder.

*creative gatherings | co-working | considered space | crafted PR*.

The Beauty Thread. by Lyndsay

If you are feeling overwhelmed, out of alignment with your inner wisdom, and holding your stories tightly inside, this is an invitation to join The Beauty Thread. — a home that will provide you with time, space and quietude to come into relationship with yourself and the world around you. A place to put down roots, to cultivate your soil, to nurture your inner landscape, a place to grow from…

I would love to support you in your own homecoming with a multi-layered offering at The Beauty Thread. including seasonal creative gatherings, cosy co-working sessions, a series of guides to help you create an intentional and joyful home, and resources to support you in crafting the stories of your creative business using meaningful PR in a considered and sustainable way.

It would be an honour to welcome you into the cosy, creative community at The Beauty Thread….you can find all of the details are in the page below…

To mark my 40th birthday I am offering you the chance to pay just 40% of the original subscription cost (i.e. 60% off) forever to join The Beauty Thread. — making it just £2 per month or £18 for a year’s membership, rather than £45. The offer runs from now up until the autumn equinox on 22nd September 2025, I hope you will join us, you would be so welcome.

1. https://www.tcmworld.org/late-summer-the-season-of-nurturing-and-transformation-2-2/