Just another day or two and we say good-bye to Summer. I still try to hold on to the greens, flowers, weather and smells of this year's lovely Summer. To illustrate this I am going to show you some photos that express this feeling best - too bad I can't let you smell or feel it, though...
I just love the shapes and colours of maize plants - seeing them grow is mesmerizing...
Our August break
We have been spending a few days in a holiday home park in Belgium. We booked a wooden triangular cottage to spend it in. But when we got there they had a lovely suprise for us: we got an upgrade to a modern, luxurious canexel type of holiday home.
We had a fantastic little place, worthy enough to spend a whole year in -even though it might cost a fortune to heat it in Winter *s*...
It had a bath tub, a dish washer, a roomy master bed room on the ground floor. A flat screen tv, a good couch for me to lie flat on, a spacious kitchen - in one word: wonderful!
My brother Gustav, whose holiday it actually was, had his own floor with two bed rooms, a sink with hot and cold water and a toilet. He loved the porch to sit on and have his breakfast. He loved it. And so did we!
During our stay at the cottage we had lovely, balmy hot weather. It was just 150 miles away from where we live, but it felt like a different place alltogether. The air smelled different, the sounds and noises (lots of them!) were different -it was a real break for us. We booked the holiday in order to provide my brother with a birthday-vacation -but in hindsight it was refreshing for us, too.
The weather
We've had a Summer that provided all kinds of weather. It was nice in June, we had a cool and rainy month of July and lovely mixed weather in August.
Enough rain to keep it green - enough sunshine to lighten up our days - nice temperatures to warm our skin and bones. Warm, hot even in August, but with a mix of cooler days to calm the senses.
Pixie
Our Maltese doggy Pixie has had a bit of trouble with the fact that it was a relatively warm season. She really needed her cooling blanket almost every day in August. Especially the nights were warm for her. Also her neck-hernia bothered her after she glissed on the slippery floor of the holiday cottage. She walked with more difficulty and sometimes lost strength in her hind legs. We took her to the vet and she had to have a cortisone shot. Poor girl. She suffers from the heat more since her shot. But she seems to be a lot better, she walks better and we detect no more loss of strength! Chapeau for our vet -and for Pup, of course!Burglars
Just before we left for our little trip there were burglars in our apartment building. They did not visit our flat, but we saw traces of them on the balcony railing. They burglared some of our neighbours flats, leaving almost no traces. The police were puzzled about this. Money and credit cards were stolen and all of us feel like our sense of privacy and security has been violated.
No one dared to open their windows or balcony doors the first couple of weeks. We also dared not open ours to let the cool night air in. We tried to compensate this with a ventilator, but that was not enough.
I am an early riser, so as soon as it was light I opened the bedroom balcony door to let the fresh, cool morning air stream in through the insect doors.
We now installed a special security lock-handle that allows the door to open at night a little bit from the inside. It cannot be opened from the outside. That will help us get through the coming cooler seasons :0)
My plant stand
I always like to do a little gardening in my plant stand next to our front door.
In the early part of the season I had the my flowers in all shades of pink, purple and white - my favourites. But now that the season's nearing its end they have stopped blooming and withered. So I planted some of the nasturtiums that I grew early in the Spring from last year's seeds. They that are now nice and strong and are both producing flowers and seed pods... I added some nicely coloured peppers and some chrysanthemums - and here's the result.
So I'm all set for the next season! Good bye lovely Summer of 2009!
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