SUMMERTIME 2

 

 

Sonnet by William Shakespeare :

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

THOU ART MORE LOVELY AND MORE TEMPERATE:

 

 Copyright Acerules

Except, it's not May here. Summer in Southern Australia is from November until the end of February. It's hot, usually drier, sometimes drought, dusty, sometimes humid, but not very , in the south. There are flies, mosquitoes, but not usually cockroaches. Spiders spin their lace to trap the unwary night walker in the gardens, or across the footpaths, ask any early morning newspaper deliverer. 

Chickens and ducks are laying unless it's obscenely hot. Fleas can be a problem for pets. At night there's often the sound of quiet conversation on porches and on backyard patios, with curlicues of cigarette smoke coming from beer gardens of the pubs. Some yards have loud and obscene language , the clinking of beer bottles in wheelie bins and intrusive loud volume of classic rock standards. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FREE PRINTABLE VINTAGE FLOWERS 2017 CALENDAR ON THIS BLOG:

free calendar blog

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: