Tuesday 17 May 2022: Summer 2022
- What is your favourite summertime activity?
- Do you have any plans you are you looking forward to this summer?
- Are you planning on doing any water-related activities (e.g. water parks, water balloons, swimming)?
My favourite summertime activity is lying peacefully in the hammock, which I bought for my wife after having visited the hammock shop in the city centre of Amsterdam (near the Bloemen Markt) - something I have been unable, sadly, to do for the past ten years.
This year involves a seemingly never-ending succession of hospital appointments. I hope and pray that my family and I survive to the autumn when we hope to visit Arras, a small city in northern France, for the day. (In Arras, there is a Changing Places toilet, which allows the trip to be even thinkable.)
The only water-related activity I can think of is the near-industrial operation required to irrigate the fruit and vegetable garden (a full-size allotment), and the orchard of a hundred trees, mostly apples, pears and plums and cherries. This is not my favourite activity.
At the end of May the central heating gets switched off until the middle of October. Whilst showers can be managed using the immersion heater, a bath requires the central heating boiler. I look forward all week for a long soak in a hot bath, with bath foam, Epsom salts and frequent top-ups of very hot water. I read in the bath until my eyes refuse to stay open. By the time I have to rise out of the water in order to cook the evening meal, I am so dehydrated (I assume from sweat) that my thirst takes an age to quench. It is akin to a sauna (which I also love and miss from long ago): my skin feels soft and restored, and my muscles turn to jelly. Although I adore the warmth, and the light mornings and light evenings, of summer, I miss my Friday evening baths, which gives me a reason to accept the awful descent into winter.
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