It Is August
The sun melts. In rays of pure honey, it slips and slides down over the trees, dripping molten gold onto green clover and slowly spreading out over the sleepy garden - a hypnotic, blonde veil. It oozes underneath the cottage door, pooling up by the windows where just outside, a robin sits in the rose bush longing for a bath. She hops to the stone edge and gazes down at her sherbet-hued twin staring back from inside the clear water. Her tiny toe dips up and down, testing the coolness in careful anticipation. The big white dog watches from the windowseat, eyes half mast, lost in the memory and the dream of a day in autumn. Breezes like cauldron steam seethe and swirl round the cottage; torpid jailers, holding the big dog hostage within the shaded walls where gentle music plays - cellos, flutes and chimes - ancient tunes that know their way through lassitude. Like a misty haze, the heat muddles the mind, gradually erasing every idea but those fleeting rose-hued notions of seasides, iced drinks, and bare feet.
On the colour wheel of months, bright yellow has rolled into view -
it is the high noon of the year.
It is hot.
We are lazy.
The sun melts. In rays of pure honey, it slips and slides down over the trees, dripping molten gold onto green clover and slowly spreading out over the sleepy garden - a hypnotic, blonde veil. It oozes underneath the cottage door, pooling up by the windows where just outside, a robin sits in the rose bush longing for a bath. She hops to the stone edge and gazes down at her sherbet-hued twin staring back from inside the clear water. Her tiny toe dips up and down, testing the coolness in careful anticipation. The big white dog watches from the windowseat, eyes half mast, lost in the memory and the dream of a day in autumn. Breezes like cauldron steam seethe and swirl round the cottage; torpid jailers, holding the big dog hostage within the shaded walls where gentle music plays - cellos, flutes and chimes - ancient tunes that know their way through lassitude. Like a misty haze, the heat muddles the mind, gradually erasing every idea but those fleeting rose-hued notions of seasides, iced drinks, and bare feet.
On the colour wheel of months, bright yellow has rolled into view -
it is the high noon of the year.
It is hot.
We are lazy.
It is August.
"Breezes like cauldron steam..."
ReplyDeleteOh, I just adore this post. Wonderful, dreamy writing.
This post has put me in the perfect mood for August.
ReplyDeleteIt's a reminder to slow things down and enjoy the warm weather and the last month before the children go back to school.
Beautiful post as always, Pamela.
xo
Brooke
I love your metaphors but here in August now the only thing that drips and pools is rain. Then more rain. And then a bit more.
ReplyDeleteI have just returned from a few days in beautiful Lakeland where generally speaking rain is the norm. But we only got really wet once on our way for a meal in 'The Pheasant' Keswick.I wonder if you know it? I thought of you once or twice when i was there.
Hello P&E,
ReplyDeleteLikening the sunshine to honey is great. Slow, sticky, heavy, suffocating. But we still might not mind having a spoonful, here in UK, rather than all this rain!
The WV is "unninges" - what the heat might do to the mind!!
Beautifully done Pamela. The sun is out and I will enjoy this, the last month of summer glory.
ReplyDeleteThe rain streams down the window, chased from the west by humid winds. Birds shiver, flowers shrink and cats sink into cushions. We are cold. We are damp. It in August.
ReplyDeleteIn the UK.
I do wish we had yours!
The brush-strokes of your words paint the picture perfectly. Each word, as in a picture puzzle sits perfectly in place creating a whole perfect to transpost onte into a trance. A perfect piece for a guided meditation, word for charmed word.
ReplyDeleteAugust always reminds me of the final month of preganacy. All is ripe, swollen and heavy. Ready to give birth to FALL!!!
ReplyDeleteDelicious, relaxing, lovely! Wonderful post hon!! I need a hammock now!!
ReplyDeleteLucy Lu asked me to tell Edward Howdy for her!!
Hope your summer is going well!!
Namaste, Sarah
august is slow motion and you describe it so well :)
ReplyDeleteFantastic. A perfect description of August. After 8 o'clock in the morning Caspar and Miss Callie don't even bother casting their melancholy eyes out the window, - a cool spot in the house, and they spend their time dreaming of autumn.
ReplyDeleteWonderfully descriptive.
You are so talented. "dripping molten gold onto green clover" - recreates such vivid late summer memories.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog & I love your dog. Is he (she?) a sheep dog? I had one in the 90's & he was incredible. Hope you are having a "rose-hued" Saturday? Thanks for you fun comments today on my post. Loved them!
I would love to find that print! I feel like that so many times! All dreamy! lol
ReplyDeleteLazy August. I love it. The sky is magnificent here throughout the month of August. So good to visit with you again, Pamela. I've been enjoying all the lovely pictures. Will be back soon.
ReplyDeleteCatherine
Wonderful painting and words. August, the time to relax into late summer, before the bustle of Fall. Your beautiful words have reminded me of the importance of slowing down which I needed! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteGillian
Oh, how absolutely wonderful - the words you use within this post like 'hypnotic' and 'moulton gold' describe the very words you have chosen.
ReplyDeletelove the photo and your words seem to provide just the right amount of steam.
ReplyDeletepve
So beautiful and just how August should be!!!
ReplyDeleteNot so with us at the moment!!! but your words and pictures are balm for a cold day and easily transport me to warm dreams.
Hugs Lynn xxx
How beautiful. You make every day seem so beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice place to be.
Love Renee xoxo
Oh Pamela, what was going through Edward;s mind as he sat there in the heat - we shall never know - some things are better left secret.
ReplyDeleteAre you, Edward, Miss A and the Songwriter by the seaside these days ? I know you like to rent a cottage by the ocean each summer. I do feel a bit guilty about Miss D's nervousness (she was much more confident when she had Em & Jake confident, unflappable & gregarious retrievers always by her side).
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly what the vine is on that side of my house although it's very much like a grape vine but the berries stay fairly round and small. I have Virginia Creeper front and back which you likely know turns a gorgeous vivid red in the fall but this vine begins as a thick coil at the ground like a giant cable, it's growing so well it's now creeping across my roof and darned if I can find any handy man to trim it for me. Sigh. I've been looking for years now - they say they'll come and they don't show .... but that's another story.
Hot & steamy in our seaside village. Winnie sends a big hello to her friends Edward and Apple. Much love to you too. S & Winnie Dixon
ps I'm just off for an afternoon nap read with Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. Thanks for the author recommendation
Just discovered your blog and I love it - spent a delightful hour!!! I'll be back. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteoh how lovely, the big white dog watching through the honeyed rays of sun....
ReplyDeleteYep, that pretty much sets the mood of August. August, I still can't believe it's already August. What happened to July? Time goes by too fast...
ReplyDeletexoxo,
Micaela
P.S. Thanks for the sweet comment you left on my guest blog post!
August at the beach at the Isle of Wight was my idea of bliss as a child.
ReplyDeleteShrimps, pails, spades.
What a beautiful languid painting.
Buster sends his best to Edward.
Yes, this is what August should be...beautifully pictured in words:)
ReplyDeleteIt's cold and blowing a gale here today - spring and summer seem so very far away as the house is buffeted by August winds. Thank you for these beautiful words - I'm feeling warmer just reading them!
ReplyDeleteOh that's why I'm so lazy these days ... August...gotta remember that:)
ReplyDeleteLovely post:)
I am in awe of your beautiful prose Pamela. I have been enchanted and swept away to sunnier climes than those we have in the UK at the moment. Mind you there are heatwaves on the Continent so if they should move a few miles north we could be in similar weather to yours. Then we will be complaining of the heat..lol
ReplyDeleteLove this line.."On the colour wheel of months, bright yellow has rolled into view -"
ReplyDeleteYour writing makes me want to curl up in a huge canopy bed inside an English Castle with a Jane Austen book in my hand!! Exquisite!
ReplyDeleteDear Pamela,
ReplyDeleteWhen I come across good writing it is like a balm for my limbs. Thank you for being so expressive; there is more than "steam" in those words, there is heart and soul.
Might I ask where and when you started to write, and if you write all the time, as some may snack?
I've never heard the state of being "hot and lazy" described so beautifully! That's exactly what's going on here... slowing down, taking a break, storing up energy for the sprint from September to December.
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful the picture that accompanies the delightful words.
ReplyDeleteI too have noticed the landscape colours are changing... fields now sway in the breeze in soft shades of wheat, corn deep green in hue reaching for the clouds.
In this season we call Summer, she is in full repose.
xo Susan
How beautiful. Your words weave a tapestry of memories.
ReplyDeleteOur August isn't terribly Summery, however, with rains and cold winds! I'll think of you in your dreaming warmth and be glad that it's Summer somewhere :)
Kim x
Exquisite.
ReplyDeleteLove all you share♥
wow that's beautiful. I'm afraid in London it would be more like 'it is August, it is raining, it is expected to keep raining, but we should tell ourselves we are fairly lucky to have a moderate climate'.
ReplyDeleteThe sizzle of the cicadas are the heralds of August in my area...they appear exactly on August 1st to fill the trees with their unusual waves of sound.
ReplyDelete