First or Last of the Summer Wine?

So, the weather's still balmy. The last of the gooseberries are plump and velvety and flush on their spiny cradle, and our English summer evenings stretch out in their velvety warm breezy relazedness, pushing it all to last (how briefly, we all acknoweldge!): that last beer, that floaty dress before the rains, that feeling of freedom, that love affair with life.

Summer: a lost love, all too soon to become a lost love once more. But not yet. Not quite yet. Not quite...yet.

For now, there's promise in the air. In the sing-song of tracks on the radio, the rattle of ice brushing against mint leaves in a crystal glass. In the flick of a skirt, a wooden bangle against lean bronzed skin. And cool linen shirt across a toned chest. Feelin' free, lookin' good. Baby!

...oh, sweet, perfumed promise. Hot, sexy, free....alive!

Or, maybe, those days are past? In their absence, are they sweeter in memory? The longing which breathed into summer nights has morphed into the chattering cry of children playing and frolicking on the grass, the back-and-forth of little voices serious about a pouring game, water from one pot to another under the evening breeze.

No more playing the dating game. Or the mating game. It's done. Is that what all the breathless obsession, sweet poison, was all about?

To fall in love in summer is to fall in love with life, with the intoxication of freedom. Remember? Now hold it, keep it, the bird won't fly.

Love it. Live it. Life is good. Inject me with summer...while it lasts.