Rainy Season Strategies

Avoiding humidity…
Hiroshi: You sleep like a cat, curled up, 
Hiroko: I nap a lot in the rainy season.
Hiroshi: I don’t sleep. 
Hiroko: And you don’t drink enough water.
Hiroshi: It’s rainy season. I osmose. Take in water through my skin.
Hiroko: How about summer in Hokkaido. Dry air, clean breezes.
Hiroshi: Ah, Hokkaido, I would reinvent myself. Drinking milk instead of water. Staying at a farm, where kind farmers give me miso ramen and a wool sweater.
Hiroko: Sweaters in summer?
Hiroshi: Hokkaido summers are mild. Perfect for light wool. Functional. Cozy. And you will have less need for napping.
Hiroko: But who will take care of the cat?
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Voice-over
Hokkaido being further north than Honshu with its hot humid summers, does have a cooler, more temperate climate, and no distinct rainy season. Might be worth trying for a summer. (Nemuri Neko by Hidari Jingorō).

Long-headed poppies appear

A windy morning...

Yuko: One of the things I love about being in Japan in May is the orange flowers popping everywhere. Even in the city, from between cracks in the pavement. Do you know what they’re called?
Mari: Tough flowers, those ones. Common name long-headed poppies. Scientific name, Papaver dubium.
Yuko: Add a splash of color to the city, don’t they too. Spring is here, and summer is on its way.
Mari: Nice weather for walks and exploring. Take a lunch, or stop in at café for herb tea and a galette.

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Voice-over

An annual, from Europe, has spread widely in Japan, but is seen as a benevolent invader.

BBQ season begins

An early summer evening…

Jacques: Time to pull the barbecue out of the shed and onto the deck.

Giselle: It’s getting a bit rusty.

Jacques: Still burns though. Pity we’ve gone vegetarian.

Giselle: Oh, we could make an exception. There’s those lamb chops that have been in the freezer since last year.

Jacques: A barbecue breakout sounds a good excuse to use them up. Deck could do with a waterblast.

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Voice-over

Barbecuing (from Native American Taino barbacoa) is cooking with a long history. Burning mainly meaty edibles over wood fires and embers. Nowadays often roasting vegetables and increasingly cooked over gas flames. 

A Swedish Jetty

Midsummer

Annalisa: So hot today, thirty-five degrees. 

Sven: Feels like forty. 

Annalisa: Lucky we’re close to water. A picnic at Kungfiskare Bay?

Sven: Under the trees? We could do that. Let’s take the boat.

Annalisa: Is the motor fixed?

Sven: I wouldn’t row it in this heat. Put lunch in the hamper and I’ll carry it down to the jetty.

__________

Voice-over

A jetty (from the French jetée to throw out) is a landing stage for boats to dock jutting out into the water. They look good in wood. Even more picturesque and summery if tree branches overhang a dinghy. But jetties can also be bigger, made of steel or concrete, for ships to discharge cargo as in Namibia, or even as a sculpture like the Spiral Jetty in Utah.

Seasonal Salutation from the White Rabbit

Where are you summering this year?

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"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time" (John Lubbock, “The Use Of Life”).

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or… "In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible” (Sarah Dessen, “”Along for the Ride).

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WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT

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