SUMMERTIME

“summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. for those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. you can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. summer just opens the door and lets you out.”
― Deb Caletti,

SUMMER IS FUN!  Unless you are a mother of a primary schooler walking to school and back in the heat each day, someone too poor to run air conditioning, or someone working in a huge commercial steel shed and we have been all of those things. 

You adapt. You learn to keep the house dark and cool with shut apertures and window dressings. You eat your frozen treats and read books you borrowed from the library before they shut for their vacation. You relish the breezes that come after nightfall from the coast. You go to the supermarket for salad and a "cooked chook" but they have run out ...

 

Summertime....and the living is easy.... That's how a song goes that I used to play on piano. I must dig it out again. Here's a professional rendition:

Plenty of lazy afternoons are spent here at the local swimming pool, especially by the children and teens. Many also go to the beaches. Gallons of sunscreen must be consumed because of the hot rays that cause melanomas. Then in the evenings mosquito and sandfly repellents are applied while enjoying barbeques and the cooler air. 

 

Ready to go with sunscreen on:

 

Dance for joy:

 

Our older cat , who's favourite place to nap is in this garden bed. She also likes to drink from the birdbath:

 

“If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper...”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Our Japanese Maple and rose:

 

Gum trees and native bushes up the bike path from our house:

 

View of the field near our house: