My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure

Written by Alastair Humphreys

Narrated by Alastair Humphreys

A Financial Times Summer Book of 2019

Seasoned adventurer Alastair Humphreys pushes himself to his very limits – busking his way across Spain with a violin he can barely play.

In 1935 a young Englishman named Laurie Lee arrived in Spain. He had never been overseas; had hardly even left the quiet village he grew up in. His idea was to walk through the country, earning money for food by playing his violin in bars and plazas.

Nearly a century later, the book Laurie Lee wrote – As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – inspired Alastair Humphreys. It made him fall in love with Spain – the landscapes and the spirit – and with Laurie's style of travel. He travelled slow, lived simply, slept on hilltops, relished spontaneity, and loved conversations with the different people he met along the hot and dusty road.

For 15 years, Alastair dreamed of retracing Laurie Lee’s footsteps, but could never get past the hurdle of being distinctly unmusical. This year, he decided to go anyway. The journey was his most terrifying yet, risking failure and humiliation every day, and finding himself truly vulnerable to the rhythms of the road and of his own life. But along the way, he found humility, redemption and triumph. It was a very good adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: May 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780008331849

Reviews for My Midsummer Morning

[Robert Prowse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a violinist my heart was with him as he rubbed some rosin on the bow and put up his music stand...well done. Best book I have listened to.

[Sophia Zell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly insightful and eye opening.
Alastair openly talks about the struggles of the adventurous soul as he sets out on one last big adventure. Absolutely brilliant, highly recommend it!

[imyknott · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a diary of an adventurer walking across Spain and fending for himself by busking using a violin he could hardly play. It was an ok read but I got somewhat irritated with the author for being a truly selfish person going off on a month plus trip and leaving his wife and two young children on their own.

[pdcread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the mid-1930s a young man called Laurie Lee arrived in Spain. For most of his life, he had not been out of the village of Slad where he grew up. He had worked for a while in London, but this new country was a revelation. He walked across the country playing his violin to earn a little money to enable him to eat.

Humphreys is an adventurer who has been around the world on a bike (as written about in Moods Of Future Joys and Thunder and Sunshine), crossed seas and deserts and many other things. He has also pioneered the micro-adventure, which is a small and cheap adventure that still pushes your boundaries and get you out into the wider world. But since getting married, having kids and ending up with something that he never would get, a mortgage, he was missing the challenge of something bigger.

Lee’s simple travel has long inspired others, including Alastair, and he had the idea of doing a modern-day version of the same trip discovering inland Spain and sleeping out under the stars. But he needed a violin first. Oh, and more importantly, some lessons to be able to play it and earn some money. He finds a teacher online who declares her musical inspiration to be heavy metal and classical and heads to a music shop and buys the cheapest instrument that he can find. Arriving for his first lesson he discovers an Australian lady who has a very different life to his, he has seven months to learn how to play. The first screeches send shivers down his spine; it was then it dawned on him that he might not earn enough to eat!

A few months later Humphreys was sitting on the harbour wall in the port of Vigo, in northwest Spain. It was time for the adventure to begin. He left his small pile of change on the bench to ensure that he knew he was starting with absolutely nothing as he began his walk. Later on that day he would hopefully earn the first money of his walk…

This is the fourth of Humphreys books that I have read now and like all of his others, it is an enjoyable read. He finds the Spanish people warm and generous and falls in love with the country. He swims in rivers, suffers the heat of the day, helps a postman deliver letters in exchange for a lift as he wanders from the coast to Madrid before heading south. I liked the way he links his trip back to Lee’s journey AS I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. The Spain that Humphreys is walking through though is a very different country than that of the 1930s which was teetering on the brink of a civil war.

It is not a superhuman effort like his cycle trip, but he does push his own boundaries by playing the violin to earn his keep. He thinks the world of his wife and children, but this book and walk is as much about his need to be out there doing something. Getting that balance between responsibility and adventure is very difficult and he is striving to find that in here. I must admit that I have resisted the temptation to go and watch the videos of Humphreys playing his violin though…

[breic-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The writing is more mature than "Thunder Sunshine." It is more expressive and sounds better. But some of the fun of the other book was its brashness. Is busking across Spain a gimmick? Sure, but so are most of what society agrees to call "adventures." To me, Humphreys's life-changing epiphanies at the end rang more false than the initial gimmick. As Humphreys himself admits, the trip was disappointingly uneventful. Things worked out well, without any crises. He doesn't meet too many interesting people, and this is partly deliberate. He avoids social interactions because without any money he can't pay his share (for drinks, a restaurant, etc.).Every travel book has to find a balance of content between day-to-day descriptions of what was done, descriptions of the places, anecdotal interactions with locals, as well as the author's thought at the time, and before and after. After a promising start, I thought this book fell over into too many of the author's thoughts about adventure, family, life. It isn't bad, but this could have been written anywhere and doesn't need the "adventure." And this kind of self-indulgent content seems like a better fit for a blog than for a book. It gets better again toward the end. > A daily stipend would have diluted everything. The insecurity of needing to busk was what made the journey. Had I carried a cushion of money, the music would have become nothing but a game or an affectation. Instead, it was my work, and it was critical. That made all the difference. I earned these coins. By the sweat of my face, I earned this bread. I earned these miles.> Because I had no money I had pretended that I wanted to rest rather than go out. But Marcos had insisted. "I want you to meet my friends. Don't worry: I am buying the beer"> I was trying to stop running away and choosing instead to head somewhere worth walking towards. I was learning to grapple with an adult life full of compromise. I saw my situation with more gratitude now: I had a home, rewarding work, enough money, and the two best kids in the world. From faraway Spain, I could look at my ordinary life with the sense of wonder I used to reserve for waking on a mountaintop in a distant land.> There, in front of me, a viper basked on the footpath. It was the colour of summer dust, with a stark, dark zigzag, and orange eyes. I admired the sinuous movement as it smoothly retreated from me. I admired my calmness for not panicking. Then, rounding the next corner, I saw a curved stick lying on the path and jumped out of my skin.> For too long I had thought adventure was life. But, actually, life is the adventure.