Summer

The clothes on this line show the Island weather perfectly; spaghetti strap tank tops hanging next to big bulky sweaters. Yesterday looked cold and I hesitated to go out to transplant flowers but it only looked cold. The temperature was 20 degrees and the sun came out while I was outside and it turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day. Summer starts today at 8:59 ADT. If I was not working I would have planned a little celebration on the deck.

Summertime is tourist season on PEI and all forecasts point to a slow year overall with one exception. It is one hundred years today that Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous novel Anne of Green Gables was accepted for publication. This is The Year of Anne and tourists are coming from far and wide to take part in year-long festivities. Japanese tourists, who have always flocked to see everything 'Anne' are supposedly breaking all records this year with Japanese tour companies booking more tours than ever before. I heard this morning that Chinese girls have found that Ann books touch a chord as with the one child families where girls are not as accepted, they see hope with the feisty orphan who can overcome just this obstacle. Her adoptive parents were expecting a boy. Canada Post is issuing a new stamp today depicting Anne. Ben Stahl, who's wife Pat was a good friend of mine, was the artist chosen to depict Anne. He illustrated several of her books years ago and portrays this imaginary girl very beautifully.

Summertime is one beautiful song. Let me link a few versions. Here are versions by Molly Johnson, Sam Cooke, and an instrumental by guitarist Gabor Szabo. Several have disappeared from the pages. Here's Susana Baca with a nice version and I'm replacing Seasons Change by Corinne Bailey Rae.

Now, I've got to run to work.

Summer Pleas

As promised, the photo that was in the Toronto Star, though it was cropped quite differently. It was very long horizontally.

Almost finished mowing the lawn. I've been at it an hour and a half and have about twenty minutes more. Needed to do some supper prep or I'll be waiting for supper and I can't have that.

We had frost last night. It was supposed to be six overnight but when I got up it was one degree and there was heavy frost. I'd say a lot of gardens were damaged. A mate at work got up at 5:30 and watered his garden thus saved it. I remember frost at this time in '89 (I think) where many gardens were lost. For some reason, my garden wasn't harmed so I shared tomato plants with friends and relatives who had lost theirs. It certainly is rare to have frost this late but it obviously is possible. We are having a wonderful day today but the rest of the week is going to be cold and a bit rainy. We need rain but more than is forecast and we need warmth.

Maybe if we call up summer, it will come. I'm willing to try. I've got lots and lots of versions of Summertime, that old standard. Here's a long version by tenor sax virtuoso, Albert Ayler and a short one by guitarist, Gabor Szabo. More next week.