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.

Lord Tunderin' Jesus

Whew! This is the calm after the storm. We just had a doozy of a thunderstorm with little pellets of hail and really heavy rain. My friend and I were sitting outside having a relaxing visit when it suddenly became apparent that this was going to happen. Mad scrambling ensued guaranteeing that neither of us melted.

Last night's blues and jazz festival performances would get mixed revues from my little circle of friends. I loved, absolutely loved, Viento Flamenco and my friends did not. My friends loved Kevin Breit and I did not. He is certainly a skilled guitar/mandolin player but he used very high pitched keys and his instruments were all electric and that combination hurt my ears. Harry Manx was great, I thought, but one friend thought he went on and on. He loved it when Kevin and his band came back on stage (they have made an album together) but I preferred Harry without Kevin. We all have different musical tastes which I am well aware of and that's cool. To all of us, who are all music lovers, it was just great to get out and hear some live music.

I am having new potatoes and our first strawberries for supper. It's cooking now and my mouth is watering. Yum!

Music: Hmmmm, haven't thought about it too much. I have lots of rain and storm music but I think I've put that up a couple of times already this week. I don't think I have strawberry or potato music so, when thinking of all of those things combined, I think of one word.... Summertime, so here we go on that....Mungo Jerry's famous rendition of In the Summertime and Regina Spektor doing Summer In the City. This is not the version you've heard before but it's very nice.