Summer days driftin' away...

I've been struggling how to sum up my summer holidays, both for myself and when asked by others. It's just so much easier when you can reply something like "Oh, I went to Croatia. Simply marvellous, I can tell you! The weather...I heard it's been rainy back here? And the clearest, most turquoise water you might imagine...!"
But what is there to say about spending more than 4 weeks back home-home, doing nothing in particular?
Actually, contrary (well, that's me) to that short post at the end of July, I all in all had a great time. Once I had grudgingly accepted that I wouldn't be going anywhere much this summer, let alone anywhere near the sea - one of the main bonus effects of staying at my parents' being not having to pay for food or anything else for a month, thereby trying to contain the chronic leakage in my bank account - I actually settled down far too well and enjoyed doing, well... nothing much. Extremely relaxing!
So here are some favourite nothings:

There were strange sights to behold. Never underestimate the creativity triggered by the scrap found in a farm yard in rural Lower Saxony... Note the octopus in the bucket.

Another favourite sight of mine: Having the local outdoor swimming pool all to myself! Yeees, well, the grey clouds may be a hint as to why no one else was there, but that's really the only weather condition inducing my swimming-pool-misanthropic self to actually go. (I spent the best part of those four weeks practicing not to let those battleship-I-always-swim-in-lane-8-pensioners ruin my good mood...)

Well, definitely a favourite, this one! Instant moodlifter!

Of course, there was still plenty of time for hanging around...

Ah, yes, come to think of it, I did do something useful after all! I had the honour of being my mum's technical assistant for these 30 little actors' school musical production called "Life in Space". I must admit I was truly impressed by their fantastic memories and their goose-pimples-inducing energy when, arms linked, they bellowed the final chorus together. The songs were stuck in my head for weeks...

But somehow...
No other picture captures the mood of this summer for me quite like this one:

"A new shirt to mark the annual parish fair."

The business sense, the composition... oozing the quintessence of Lower Saxony... Perfect!

Perspektivwechsel.

Hach nee! Da quengelt man so gemütlich innerlich vor sich hin, dass man doch ins Freibad will und es ja aber immerzu regnet und nicht mal die Bonner Hallenbäder geöffnet haben und einem da doch tatsächlich die Hände gebunden sind ob des Besiegens von Schweinehunden und anderen übellaunigen Fabelwesen...
Und dann meldet der Aus(rhein)landskorrespondent aus der Heimat plötzlich sowas hier:


Das verdirbt einem doch das schönste Selbstmitleid!
Aber so schnell lass ich mich nicht abspeisen. Ich find schon noch was zum Nörgeln:
Da verbringe ich über vier (!) Wochen in der heimatlichen Kleinstadt und wann kommt das Hochwasser??? Klar, wenn ich grad wieder weg bin. Die Wochen davor hingegen passierte... quasi... so gut wie... Naja, davon eventuell ein anderes Mal mehr.
Tauschen mit den Leuten im blauen Haus und drumherum will ich nun aber auch wieder nicht. Ich hab neulich ja schon die Krise gekriegt, als ich eine kleine Pfütze auf meinem Laminat sah und ein undichtes Fenster vermuten musste! (Wenn der Argwohn erst gesät ist...) Die Vorstellung, dass alles, aber auch alles, was einem lieb und teuer ist, unter Wasser und Schlammmassen begraben ist... Uuuuh, nee. Da würd ich meine Steuerkarte und mein Abiturzeugnis ja erst recht niemals mehr...
Das ist so ein weiteres beliebtes Szenario für schlaflose frühe Morgenstunden: Was würde ich aus der Wohnung retten, wenn es brennt?/Wie würde ich mich aus der Wohnung retten, wenn es brennt? (Stichwort Holztreppenhaus)/Was würde ich tun, wenn durch Sturm nachts das Dach einstürzt?/Was, wenn der irre Nachbar nochmal vor der Tür steht?

Aber vielleicht muss ich vorerst das Hochwasserszenario doch noch nicht in meinen persönlichen Horrorreigen einreihen. Ist ja doch eher unwahrscheinlich im Dachgeschoss.

Amen to that!

Mind you go easy on those mind-altering drugs, kids!

And then, out of the grey, something pops up to brighten up even your dullest, darkest day...

Approach at own risk.

Think rainy day meets cabin fever meets PMS meets an overdose of family meets an underdose of friends meets homesickness for Ireland meets longing for a holiday (anywhere by the sea really) meets chronic skintness meets white-hot jealousy for everyone else going on holiday.
Yep, that sums it up nicely.

500 (or so) days of summer.

So you wake up on a glorious Sunday morning (well, noon rather) to sun rays warming your feet, swifts screeching, church bells ringing and as you're blinking and wiping your eyes you think: "Ah, well!"
You get up, take an iced coffee from your fridge, take a sip, open your window...
...And creepy, ugly guy across the street is watching hardcore porn again.

Ah...well.


Totally unrelated:
Why it was a wise decision to leave my bike at the institute during that thunderstorm the other day, take the tram to the station instead and not cycle through the alley and park my bike in its usual place, which is this:

Ah, summer, gotta love it!

Speaking of which... That movie... It was one of those films where I saw the trailer and fell in love with it. I was 100% sure that it was going to be one of my favourite films of all times once I'd watched it. So sure that when I happened upon the DVD in a shop the other day, I had to buy it straight away. (Yes, I'm weird that way. I am familiar with the concept of video rental, theoretically, but certain films... I need them on my shelf, available at all times. Just my rodent hoarding mentality I guess.)
So, I watched it. And it's great. No, really, it is. I love it. Will definitely watch it again. Sometime. It's everything the trailer promised. Does exactly what it says on the tin. It's just...
It is exactly like the trailer. Just longer.
And the incurable romantic inside me was shouting at the screen for a last-minute happy twist to the story... But again, that's just me being weird that way. It's the old battle between wanting to watch good films, but at the same time wanting nothing too realistic because, let's face it, I can (and do) have sordid reality right under my nose every day anyway.
The makers of the film are probably laughing their heads off right now, because it seems after all to be made exactly for people like me. Dead-on.
So I better watch it again.
Or... here's a crazy thought: join the other people out there in that...thingy...reality.

I'm a huge fan.

Obviously, it's too hot for anything much.
Like working.
Let alone coherent thinking.
In lieu thereof (ha, always wanted to use that in a sentence!), random, fleeting pictures are rotating inside my brain, like the flickering blades of my newly acquired fan:
Practicing the piano for the recital on Wednesday while trying to ignore the sweat drops running down my temples and my back...
Ice cubes clinking in pint-sized glasses of passion fruit spritzers...
"Windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting in a non-existent breeze..." (that's actually a quote from Harry Potter 5)
Sending our pupils home at 11.30am every day because of the heat (way over 40°C in some classrooms)...
The wonderful, wondrously cool air-conditioned air inside the supermarket...
...And the wall of hot air you seem to walk into when you eventually have to leave it again...
Football and popsicles and more football and more popsicles and more piano practicing...
The droning of my fan that, after only 9 days, seems to be complaining of excessive labour when all I seem to get out of it is the same old hot air, only slightly stirred - I might as well sit in front of my hair-dryer...
Meeting friends and sitting under sunshades and trees outside "our" Italian restaurant, deliberating which pasta dish it is to be today - until the waitress arrives and we order, invariably, what we always have...

Yeah, so altogether I guess it's not too bad.
If only there wasn't that gnawing knowledge down below that I really should get down to cramming for those end-of-term exams in music theory...
But really, it's impossible. I mean, see above.

Right, time for another cold shower!