WordPress Daily Prompt: In The Summertime

Theoretically, summer will return to the polar-vortex-battered Northern Hemisphere. What are you looking forward to doing this summer? If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, what are your fondest memories of Summer past?

This is a fond memory of the summer past, a couple of years ago, when my proportions were where they should be more or less and a sunbathe in the garden was up my street. Times pass and even golden oldies admit that their hay day for such photos is a thing of the past. I do no longer even like lying in the sun to brown my luxury contours which are no more a luxury but an overweighted necessity a result of indulging in good food and avoiding long walks. Perhaps I could blame it on the daily prompt where I spend half an hour sitting at the computer instead of taking a walk in the countryside. My feline Fluffy was keeping guard on this photo.

So what am I theoretically looking forward to this summer? If it is something like last year’s summer, there will not be very much to look forward to. My sun tan was covered with goose pimples, my feet almost got webbed in between the toes and I could have had a paddy field instead of a garden, having so much rain to enable growing rice. We did not have a good Summer last year.

This year has had a good start. I am now sitting outside on the porch with the sunblind down and it is only the beginning of April. The spring has arrived and I hope the fine weather is here to stay. So what is a golden oldie doing this Summer? I am sure you would like to know, and so would I. I will not be taking any luxury holidays in warmer places, I have everything I need at home. Switzerland has no coastline, so I will not be swimming in the sea. As my swimming efforts are similar to that of a canine, known as doggy paddle, I will not miss the sea. I can always take a shower to cool down in my own bathroom.

I am looking forward to taking it easy, doing things I want to do and not what I have to do: the advantage of a retired life. A few years ago I was rising in the morning at 6 a.m. and off to work at 7.30. An hour’s lunch break and a work-filled afternoon dealing with export problems, glued to a telephone and computer, all in the name of employment to earn money to cover the future days of sumnmer. These days are a thing of the past and I now ask myself what was it all about? I am free, can do what I want and go where I want to, the problem being that as the body and mind grows older, the need to do these things is no longer in the foreground and also the ability to do it all without encountering a twinge in the back or tired legs. Life is now planned around doctor appointments, cleaning sessions in the home and shopping expeditions.

I will probably take my camera for walks, taking photos of sun drenched slopes, smiling cows in the fields and discovering various insects in my garden. I might even take a few photos of Mr. Swiss and my felines if they are available and not recovering from the heat somewhere. I will be eating most meals outside on the porch and reading my book of the moment until ten in the evening outside in the first summer months. I am already writing my daily prompt outside. Luckily the porch is half covered by the floor of the balcony of the apartment above, so I can even create my mind blasting works of literature when it is raining. Each season has its advantages to be judged on what they have to offer.

Now I am finished with my words of wisdom and will move onto the next Summer day task. I believe there a some photos to upload on the computer. As today is a lazy Sunday afternoon there will be no evening meal to prepare, today we have choisi de Frigidaire (find what you can in the fridge and eat it). Life is good, great and lazy (even if my luxury contours of the days gone by no longer exist.)

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