On a beautiful day, a walk with Emma is simply wonderful. When the breeze is light as a leaf and the sun shines brightly, I always make sure to bring Emma to the beach for a swim to cool her down. She loves swimming and on the best of summer days, I dive in with her.
But the glorious days when together we've swam in an inviting Atlantic Ocean are so few that I can count the times in all of Emma's two years on one hand.
Thus, when I think of the Icelandic summer, I envision a writer in rags scribbling over a faint candlelight. In other words, it is about as unpredictable and unlikely as prosperous income for that impoverished writer in rags.
From start, the prospect is not good. The unpredictable unpredictability of summer is the underlying threat that lingers in the air all summer long.
For a few years, the unpredictability was a blessing in disguise. Days and days of sunshine and double-digit temperatures brought unexpected joy and bliss to the lives of the nation that otherwise lives in a permanent state of winter.
But this was before Emma came into our lives. Her first summer, the summer of 2012, was lovely and her first walks were out in the sun. Therefore, I looked forward to the summer of 2013. I was tired of the long and cold winter days. Yes, I still enjoyed watching her discover the snow and rolling in it with such passion that child's play pales in comparison.
But it was time for summer.
After the winter came spring, cool and wet as tradition calls for, but within the hopeful local awoke the idea of the idyllic summer, a fragile bubble waiting to burst and disperse all pending hopes of bliss. As unlikely as it is for the Icelandic summer to become the Greek summer of my dreams, I always expect bliss but instead catch a blizzard.
And last summer, all hope faded away in a never-ending downpour. Downpour after downpour, hope was crushed until its remaining ashes simply drifted in the direction of the more predictable mainland of Europe.
After a disappointing downpour of a summer and one hell of a stormy winter, I anxiously anticipated a surprise of a summer in 2014, a blast from the past with the sun high up in the sky and a mere breeze to move the air every now and then.
The summer season began with prosperity. May arrived in unseasonably festive spirits lifting hopes and raising expectations for the summer months to come.
My daily cycle to and from work was an awakening I simply couldn't go without. It was temptation at its best. Even though some days rain fell and strong breeze bombarded off the coast, most days gave reason to hope for the best.
But then came June, the month with the beautiful jovial name, and with it expectations of even more heartfelt joy.
But no, once again came the season of pounding downfall, the kind that pours its sorrows onto the lands below with such fierce that its inhabitants feel as if they are drowning in unknown sorrows.
But sorrow rarely travels alone. Its trusted companion, rage, raged in from the raging Atlantic - a sea perhaps enraged by its role as mankind's personal bin - and attacked with fierce blows that cooled the air with vicious windfall.
And thus has been the tale of summer so far. Wind and rain, rain and wind, barely giving the sun space enough to come out for an afternoon, let alone a whole day.
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| The summer of 2014 so far. Photo by JB |
Yesterday afternoon was like so many afternoons with my Emma in the local dog park. She was in her element playing with her dear four-legged friends while I stood in my raincoat - a raincoat I might add offers a fierce opposition in the worst of downpours - simply waiting for her to indicate to me that she too had enough of the very wet and cold rainfall that seemed to go on forever.
Therefore, when the play date came to an end, we bowed our heads and took a hike to our shelter of a home.
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| Walking in the rain. Photo by JB |
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| Stairs drowned in rainwater. Photo by JB |
Both Emma and I arrived home dripping as if we'd just walked out of a cold shower, me fully-dressed and Emma in her flawless-as-always birthday suit. It was far from the rural romantic return of the heroine and her dog to the lover's humble abodes.
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| Au-naturel re-fill for Miss Emma. Photo by JB |
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| A very wet dog. Photo by JB |
Yes, the immediate response of the romantic hero to the heroine's dour return was to dry the thick fur of a patient young dog while the heroine took a hot shower to quench the cold from her bones.
I am a fan of Jane Austen's pastoral (and feminist) romance, and in particular Persuasion in which rain plays a substantial part.
But after all this rain and wind, not one but two summers in a row, romance is the last thing that comes to mind in such foul weather, weather that is not only unpredictable but unseasonably bad, even for Icelandic summer.
But wait, summer just got more unpredictable. In the distance, the resounding of an invisible drum in an imaginary parade draws attention away from the misery in the skies above.
It is yet another unpredictable song of a summer that in truth has not yet arrived.
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