In Limbo – Waiting For Summer

“Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.”

Brooks Atkinson

 I’m filling in time; the time between Christmas and Easter, the time of waiting for summer, the time of limbo.

 “A hush is over everything, Silent as women wait for love; the world is waiting for the spring.”

Sara Teasdale

All seasons hold beauty but each one of us has our time and mine is summer.

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”

John Ruskin

 I was born for hot weather, on the first of July, the sunny season, not for rainy mornings, dark skies and chilly afternoons.

 I want to be outside, in my garden, on the beach, sitting at a pavement cafe, anywhere, as long as it’s outside and I don’t need to wear socks, nasty things!

 “The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

Carl Jung

Rainy afternoon

   “The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Yet, in the bleak mid-winter, there is a light, a solstice light; after the twenty first of December; the month of Poseidon; Winter Solstice in ancient Greece, nights become shorter and days last longer, summer is loading!

‘There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’

 Leonard Cohen

 Easter is yet three or four months away.

   Months of listening to the wind rattle the windows and howl down the chimney.

Loutraki is well known for its blustery days, a veritable windy city, it could take on Chicago any day.

I’ll look on the bright side, I have four months to rid myself of this Christmas weight.

I don’t think I shall ever make a Christmas cake again, my family hates it and I eat it alone, morning, noon and night, the cause of all my kilos!

 I shall snuggle up in bed, all warm and toasty accompanied by a comforting cup of coffee and a book.

 “I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

I have plenty to read, my family knows me well and I received ten books from the little darlings as Christmas gifts.

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

 Oscar Wilde

As rain patters on the window panes and drips on the table outside the door, I shall sit with my sewing box and return all errant buttons to MGG’s (My Greek God)shirts, the task he has been requesting me to knuckle down to since the beginning of last summer.

 I shall stitch and fix my daughter’s glad rags, the daughter who, while once having an emergency in a hotel, with no mother to help, looked up, “How to thread a needle” on Youtube!

 She didn’t manage things with the needle;

 “It was a stupid needle from the hotel’s free sewing kit”, so I was told.

  She used the free safety pin.

 “I am like a drop of water on a rock. After drip, drip, dripping in the same place, I begin to leave a mark, and I leave my mark in many people’s hearts.”

Rigoberta Menchu

I shall declutter my kitchen cupboards, whilst rejoicing at the sight the spectacular almond tree growing outside my kitchen window:

The first tree of the year to bloom, reminding me that spring is on the way.

 “Flowers that bloom in the winter may not survive till spring.”

Hari Kumar

There’ll be much rejoicing upon finding long lost items which were put away in the most unexpected places by MGG whilst emptying the dishwasher.

 Maybe I’ll come across the four of six crystal whisky glasses which mysteriously disappeared one night over Christmas.

 “Is there something you need to tell me MGG”?

 I shall secretly smoke indoors, (Baby it’s cold outside!) not so secretly though, MGG has a good sense of smell and he knows why I suddenly have a passion for scented candles.

 By the way, that stuff you can buy to put in ashtrays, to kill the smell, well, it doesn’t work.

 Nothing works; I have tried everything, only ripping down curtains, tearing off loose covers, stuffing them in the washing machine and sluicing down every surface with warm soapy water, come spring, chases away the stink of stale cigarette smoke.

“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”

Mark Twain


We may be lucky this January and experience the balmy, Halcyon Days; days of glorious sunshine, tricking us into thinking spring has arrived early.

 It hasn’t

 February and March loom upon the horizon.

 “Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.”

H. Auden

I shall wear my Ugg boots with my nightie, much to my family’s disgust but if my feet are warm, then all is right with the world.

 I shall sleep in my best cashmere jumper, well, it was bought for its warmth, wasn’t it?

“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

 Percy Bysshe Shelley

February: Greek Carnival Time .

  I never liked this time of the year, especially when my children were small, endless parties, endless costumes to create or buy.

 However, once this trying period has passed it means we’re just that bit closer to spring.

 “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

 Oscar Wilde

Only March to endure now, don’t forget to say “White Rabbits” three times on the first of the month.

What is the meaning of this, why white rabbits, why three times?

 This is something I must look into.

Hopefully this is goodbye to bad weather, most likely cold North Winds will blow, bringing with them, a hint of spring.

“What light through yonder window breaks?”

 Shakespeare

 “The sea complains upon a thousand shores.”

Alexander Smith

In March, my Sweet Melina, my granddaughter, will turn four, where has the time gone?

April is here, which,  according to T.S Eliot is “The cruellest month”.

  I assure you T.S, you are wrong!

 I take peek through a door, I see a new world, bright and shiny, smell fresh earth, cleansed by cool spring showers, I feel summer approaching.

 “Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World!

 Christopher Columbus

It’s time to drag out dusty garden furniture, to plant basil and mint and to dig out summer clothes, which, hopefully will fit, after this “Winter of Discontent”.

  It’s time to throw open the widows and let the world flood in.

 I’ll bake the most scrumptious cake for MGG, who celebrates his birthday on the twenty ninth of this marvelous month.

  Ah, at last, here come the darling buds of May!

Sonnet 18

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; 

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. ‘

 William Shakespeare.

 I shall follow Greek May Day traditions and crown  Melina’s pretty head with a wreath of sweet-smelling spring flowes.

We shall take carefree walks along the seafront, where tables and chairs are appearing outside cafes.

We will watch fishermen, bringing in their day’s catch and marvel at the sun, glistening on the sea.

 Melina will turn to me and ask; “When can we go swimming?”

 I will answer her, excitedly; “Soon Melina, very soon”

 And we shall twirl and dance with joy.

 “The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.”

Henry Ward Beecher

I shall have survived winter.