It’s that time of year when the summer holidays are starting to come to an end.

The six weeks that seemed so long at the beginning are suddenly nearly over. For some people, there might be a sense of sadness that summer is coming to an end. For others, perhaps there’s a little bit of relief that normal routines are about to return.

I’ve been thinking about the pressure we can put on ourselves to make the most of the summer.

There can be this idea that summer should be full of fun. Days out, holidays, barbecues, trips to the beach, making memories.

And if you have children, there can be an added pressure to make sure they’re entertained and having a good time throughout the holidays.

But what happens when it doesn’t quite go to plan?

Maybe you couldn’t afford the holiday you wanted. Maybe the weather wasn’t great. Maybe the children spent more time arguing than playing nicely. Maybe you had a difficult day, felt exhausted or simply wanted some time to yourself.

It can be easy to feel like we’re doing something wrong when our summer doesn’t look like the one we imagined.

Especially when we’re surrounded by pictures of everyone else having a wonderful time.

Social media doesn’t necessarily help with this. We see the holiday photos, the days out and the happy family pictures. We see the best moments, but we don’t see everything that happened before or after the photo was taken.

We don’t see the arguments in the car, the tiredness, the stress about money or the child who didn’t want to be there.

We see a snapshot.

And sometimes I think we can do the same thing when we look back at our own summer.

We can focus on what we didn’t do.

The places we didn’t visit. The things we didn’t get around to. The days that didn’t feel particularly memorable.

But maybe those things don't mean we haven't had a good summer.

Maybe a good summer doesn’t have to be a perfect one.

We can have a lovely holiday and still have a stressful day.

We can love spending time with our family and still need some time alone.

We can be grateful for what we have and still find things difficult.

Both things can be true.

Perhaps we don’t need to have filled every day with activities or created endless memories. Maybe some of the best parts of summer are the ordinary moments that we don’t think to photograph.

A quiet morning. Sitting outside with a cup of tea. Going for a walk. Having a conversation with someone you care about. Watching a film together. Or simply having a day where nothing much happens.

As the summer holidays come to an end, perhaps we don’t need to ask ourselves whether we made the most of every minute.

Maybe we can just think about what we enjoyed, what we found difficult and what we’d like to take with us into the rest of the year.

Because perhaps summer doesn’t need to be perfect.

It just needs to be ours.