Summer dreamer
May. 30th, 2021 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12It's 20 degrees, all the windows in the house are open, and Matthias has put on a playlist in which every song sounds as if it's a 70s disco hit remixed by a 90s house DJ. In other words, summer is here, and not a moment too soon.
May was pretty horrible, to be honest. It rained almost every single day, it was freezing, and I barely left the house. The rain made the garden turn into an unruly jungle — massive weeds everywhere, the grass growing to knee height and filled with cow parsley, etc — which made me feel stressed and unhappy. This weekend we were finally able to get out and fix things: Matthias mowed the lawn and cleaned the deck, and I weeded the vegetable patch and flowerbeds. This instantly improved my mood. We also finally assembled our garden furniture — a table, chairs and massive umbrella. I haven't spent much time out there, but I think we're going to hang out and read in an hour or so. It's the first time it's really been warm enough for this.
As is always the case in the UK when there's the slightest hint of sunshine, every public green space in town is full of people sunbathing, picnicking, and so on. We didn't join them, but we did head out to buy gelato and wander along beside the river, which was packed with swans, ducks, and geese. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, the sun was warm on my skin, and life felt good.
I've let my reading and TV log lapse a bit, but I want to throw in a quick recommendation for the book I finished last week: The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper. This is a work of historical fiction centred on enslaved women working in a brothel in Pompeii, and Harper drew on real Pompeiian graffiti (at least insofar as the characters' names are concerned; obviously it's not possible to glean more than that from such sources) when creating her characters. It's not a gentle story — none of these women are doing such work by choice, and their lives are brutal, subject to sudden outbursts of inescapable violence. But in giving these women voice, Harper also gives them a sense of community and solidarity, and even moments of joy and agency. I highly recommend it, although as you might imagine it comes with the sorts of content warnings you'd expect for the subject matter.
I hope everyone has been enjoying their weekends, and that the sun has shone in your direction!
Edited to add: garden photoset.
May was pretty horrible, to be honest. It rained almost every single day, it was freezing, and I barely left the house. The rain made the garden turn into an unruly jungle — massive weeds everywhere, the grass growing to knee height and filled with cow parsley, etc — which made me feel stressed and unhappy. This weekend we were finally able to get out and fix things: Matthias mowed the lawn and cleaned the deck, and I weeded the vegetable patch and flowerbeds. This instantly improved my mood. We also finally assembled our garden furniture — a table, chairs and massive umbrella. I haven't spent much time out there, but I think we're going to hang out and read in an hour or so. It's the first time it's really been warm enough for this.
As is always the case in the UK when there's the slightest hint of sunshine, every public green space in town is full of people sunbathing, picnicking, and so on. We didn't join them, but we did head out to buy gelato and wander along beside the river, which was packed with swans, ducks, and geese. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, the sun was warm on my skin, and life felt good.
I've let my reading and TV log lapse a bit, but I want to throw in a quick recommendation for the book I finished last week: The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper. This is a work of historical fiction centred on enslaved women working in a brothel in Pompeii, and Harper drew on real Pompeiian graffiti (at least insofar as the characters' names are concerned; obviously it's not possible to glean more than that from such sources) when creating her characters. It's not a gentle story — none of these women are doing such work by choice, and their lives are brutal, subject to sudden outbursts of inescapable violence. But in giving these women voice, Harper also gives them a sense of community and solidarity, and even moments of joy and agency. I highly recommend it, although as you might imagine it comes with the sorts of content warnings you'd expect for the subject matter.
I hope everyone has been enjoying their weekends, and that the sun has shone in your direction!
Edited to add: garden photoset.