The Taste of Summer

To me, the taste of Summer is a gelato. I love the sharp colours and icy sweetness of one.

Yesterday we went down to the beach to have an ice cream. Whilst the boys love to eat the the creamy ice cream you get from the van, I always get the gelato. The bright colours reflect the shimmer of a hot day. A gelato from the van parked down at the beach is usually the cheapest version of one that you could get, but still it is my favorite. They are usually too big for me to finish and most times I hand it over to K or S to eat when I am half way through.


I had a perfect birthday yesterday. My brother and his family dropped over in the morning with a gift voucher from an art supply shop. They stayed and chatted for a while before heading off.

Then my work colleague dropped over for lunch with her teenage daughter. J has just bought a brand new car and we spent some time peering through all the nooks and crannies, admiring the smooth plastic interior and the new car smell. She had also bought a GPS and, being a complete troglodyte with map reading of any sort, I was duly impressed. My husband, who is my online GPS when I get lost, rolled his eyes and muttered something about precious skills being lost with all these gadgets. I said that I never had the skills of map reading so it was no loss if I got a GPS.

After she had left I went immediately down to the art supply shop where I spent more than the voucher (as happens) and came home with a brown paper bag full of lovely things.

In the evening we went down to the beach. It was full of people, the wind was quick and whipped around us. By the time we got back into the car my skin was salty from the air. The weather had cooled down when we had arrived, but there were still people in the water. Lots of people bring down chairs, food and families and spend the day down here.

At night it is full of young men charged with testosterone, milling about in their pumped up cars. There were a few there when we arrived. The stood in front of us at the ice cream van and their bodies had the posturing stance of a man barely out of puberty. The language they spoke was almost laughable in it's predictability. Lots of "yo" and "hey man" and horizontal two fingered gesticulations. The young girls in the van were giggling as the boys attempted to flirt with them. I felt old yet, at the same time, relieved. Those young men were of a neanderthal predisposition. Imagine having to pick a prospective mate out of that batch.

Later on that night, I went into the studio for an hour or so and practised some paint mixing.

It is quite amazing how easy it is to mix so many lovely colours and still end up with the one colour - mud. Still, practice makes perfect and so I shall be in there again tonight.

It really was the nicest day.

Ciao

LC