ANOTHER IRISH SUMMER !

OUR SEASON OF DISCONTENT

The theory is that as of today (well yesterday to be precise) this island has entered that period that we optimistically refer to as ‘high summer’. The reality is very different, so far despite the teasing sunshine of May this year has delivered yet again an awful summer. We’ve had high winds, copious rainfalls, ominous darkening evenings and below normal temperatures resulting in the good citizens of this fair isle going about their business under a meteorological malaise! And to add to our national merriment the news headlines are boding dire economic times ahead. Our building boom which underpinned our mardi-gras Celtic Tiger has ground to a halt, fuel prices and bank interest rates are soaring as are the prices of basic food stuffs. All in all the Irish summer of 2008 could yet be remembered as our summer of discontent. To alleviate the gloom I’ve put together a potpourri of summer as we remember it and as we would wish it still to be. So for the next few minutes fold up the brolly find suitable shelter, pour yourself an ice cold drink and bask in the summer as God intended it, as you chew on these bright and cheerful reflections of the season that has so far escaped us ! ~ GOSh. ~

"July is the seventh month of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. It was the fifth month in the early calendar of the ancient Romans. The Romans called the month Quintilius, which means fifth. A Roman Senate renamed the month to Julius (July) in honour of Julius Caesar, who was born on 12 July. The Anglo-Saxon names for the month included Heymonath or Maed monath, referring respectively to haymaking and the flowering of meadows."

That beautiful season the Summer!

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;

and the landscape

Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

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- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Answer July—

Where is the Bee—

Where is the Blush—

Where is the Hay?

.

Ah, said July—

Where is the Seed—

Where is the Bud—

Where is the May—

Answer Thee—Me—

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- Emily Dickinson

"And pray, who are you?"

Said the Violet blue

To the Bee, with surprise,

At his wonderful size,

In her eyeglass of dew.

"I, madam," quoth he,

"Am a publican Bee,

Collecting the tax

Of honey and wax.

Have you nothing for me?"

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- John Bannister Tabb

"The sandy cat by the Farmer’s chair

Mews at his knee for dainty fare;

Old Rover in his moss-greened house

Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.

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In the dewy fields the cattle lie

Chewing the cud ‘neath a fading sky;

Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:

Gone is another summer’s day."

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- Walter De La Mare

"Those were summers when the heart quivered up from the hot yellow gravel and pierced the plaited rushes of my wide-brimmed hats, summers almost without nights. For even then I so loved the dawn that my mother granted it to me as a reward. She used to agree to wake me at half past three and off I would go, an empty basket on each arm, towards the kitchen gardens that sheltered in the narrow bend of the river, in search of strawberries, black currants, and hairy goseberries." - Colette

"I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer."

- Brendan Behan.

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."- Sam Keen