UNQUENCHABLE SUMMER…

Balmy summer days conjure images of bare feet on cold marble floors indoors and in the streets, swinging, carefree, browned arms and legs in floral dresses and sandals strapped on carelessly. For the older folks like me, who want comfort but still yearning to look a little hip…some baggy Bermuda shorts with deep pockets and flip flops slapping against dried heels and a gait that suggests… simplicity and not a cat’s cradle of complicated dos and don’ts and must and must nots. What I really want to say is that this sunny season, gives me this sense of abandon and freedom…to dress as I please…zipping out of the kitchen with oil stains on my clothes and reeking of garlic and in a pair of Japanese slippers to hurriedly purchase some forgotten ingredients from the corner greengrocer’s or lug back half a gigantic watermelon. But to be totally honest, I do hide myself behind some huge dark glasses and quick paint my lips to impart this sense of…I’m still with it…just being very casual because I’m so very busy and all that.

Another thing that rides in with summer, is the heat waves which send us to the beach to just wallow in the water, like a couple of water buffaloes and let the waves lap around us or just retreat indoors to a cool air conditioned room. But back in the 80’s when I first came to Greece, we didn’t have an air conditioner in our old house. I remember languorous summer afternoons when Yiannis and I used to lie limp and spreadeagled on our bed in the suffocating midday heat, when the air was still and not a leaf stirred outside and the cicadas droned on and on and spun us into a bottomless sleep. Then one day we had this brilliant idea. We grabbed the spray bottle that we used to wet our clothes before we ironed them…we didn’t have a steam iron in those days…filled it up with ice water and sprayed it in the air over our faces and let the fan blow on our wet skin and cool us down. Then the heavens dropped a gift on us. A friend was selling his office air-conditioner…a monstrous thing that was shoved into a huge hole knocked into the wall. The part that protruded outside rattled and rumbled like an ancient engine and probably annoyed the neighbours…but inside with the balcony door shut, it just hummed and the room was nice and cool and the three of us…Annie was a year old then…slept like babies.

This brings me to last week’s heat wave when temperatures climbed into the 30’s and drove me indoors. On Saturday, when a hot wind blew outside, Yiannis rang to remind me that the exterminators would be coming to throw in some deadly bait in the mouse traps hidden in corners around the garden and spray the sewers where the roaches nest and multiply…and I also remembered suggesting getting rid of those annoying mosquitoes that flit around at night and nip us around the ankles and legs when we’re having dinner on the back terrace. I normally stick mosquito coils in the flower beds to give us some respite but this time I thought we could go drastic and fumigate the whole garden. He wasn’t quite sold on the idea until I reminded him how clouds of mosquitoes pursued him every evening when he was out watering the plants, which would set him off slapping his arms and legs when they became overly persistent and muttering…` these mosquitoes are really hungry.’ And so he buckled and gave in…And now in the stifling heat, I was in no mood to entertain those pest killers.

At around twelve in the afternoon he called me from work…`Where are you?’…`In the kitchen.’…`The exterminators are outside the back garden waiting for you to open the gate. They just called me.’ I grabbed the remote control and went outside but there was no van in sight. In fact, there was no one out there. I called him back and he suggested I walk out to the front street and look out for them because they were probably lost, their brains dulled in the heat and they were muddled about the front and back garden. But they were not there and I poked my head around the corner to search the narrow street, where the back gate opens up to. And there they were…right at the end of the street, outside their van, all smart in orange uniforms, arguing with the lady who lived in the last house. She kept waving her arms about and they kept insisting and I just managed to catch the last bit…`You ring our boss!’ I imagined that they were determined to enter and exterminate her pests and she kept trying to tell them that she had never asked for any such thing. I clapped my hands loudly and waved at them indicating that their mission was at this end of the street and not that.

They finally pulled up in front of our place and took a long time to come out of the van. They were checking their clipboard and talking to someone on the phone. They finally emerged, armed with some huge spray cans and mumbled some excuses behind their masks about the mix-up. Then they asked what exactly needed doing…I thought they had already been instructed but they looked at me with blank faces. I had to go through the whole routine with them and they kept ticking off some boxes on their clipboard. When it came to the fumigating part…they were lost… I suppose there was no box for it…`Err you will have to pay extra for that.’…`Alright.’ I responded a little impatiently, feeling the hot noon sun beat on my head and my skin prickle with perspiration. Just then Yiannis walked in and the whole thing started again and when it came to the mosquitoes, they repeated the bit about the extra money we’d have to pay and when we agreed…they appeared a little disappointed and a little ruffled and mumbled about…how our plants would wither and die because it was really toxic and maybe they should only spray our walls…` What on earth for?’ I asked and Yiannis was ready to send them away, muttering…` why the hell did they send us these two duds?’

Finally we decided to scrap the fumigation…those two didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. When they were done with all the spraying and baiting in the blistering heat, we felt a little sorry for them and invited them into the kitchen to do their paper work. They dragged themselves in, wiped the sweat off their brows, pulled out the kitchen chairs, sighed…`Ahh it’s so cool in here,’… and plopped themselves down…` Some cold water?’ I asked…`Yes please,’ they echoed each other and guzzled down one glass after the other. Still feeling sorry for them, we wracked our brains to see what else we could offer them…`Do you want to go outside and pick some apricots for yourselves?’ asked Yiannis…`No! No! Thank you.’  They appeared horrified at the thought of being driven out in the heat again…` Some ice cream then?’ I asked. Their faces lit up and they accepted the cones, thanking me profusely. The tall one, leaning back in his chair, cracked the chocolate coating, licked into the ice cream and stared into nothingness. The other one munched into the cone, borrowed a pen from me…his didn’t work…and signed away languidly, on different dotted lines, on the official looking paper with the boxes. He then tore it off his clipboard and handed it to me proudly, as if to say…Mission Accomplished! We even sent them off with some coffee money. Later I looked at the paper and showed it to Yiannis. It said in big bold letters in both English and Greek…PEST CONTROL CERTIFICATE…Some of the boxes with chemical sounding names had been ticked and at the bottom our pest killer had signed in four different capacities ….1.The Person Responsible For The Area Of Application… 2.The Technician Responsible For Applications… 3.The Scientist Responsible … 4.The Scientist Responsible…there were two of those. He signed in four different signatures, two in scribbles and two in a flourish with great big loops. What a laugh we had.

The heat wave persisted on Monday and I thought I’d ride it out indoors. But Yiannis decided to send his workers to jet spray our terraced roof to remove some old protective coating so that a fresh layer could be applied…`A good time as any,’ he kept saying. And so the machine shuddered and roared and sludge and dirt gurgled and gushed down our drainpipes and flooded our yards. Fortunately, his workers came down and cleaned the yards. It so happened that one of the gutter pipes was blocked  and they couldn’t figure out what to do and the man of the day came back in a huff and a puff…obviously upset with his workers… drove a hose through the pipe and flushed it out, declaring sarcastically…`looks like they need an engineer [referring to himself] to sort this out for them.’  Before that, Lena, the cleaning lady and I tied a big rubbish bag around the pipe to collect the discharge, to save cleaning the place again. When the bag was full and the workers had left, our brainy engineer carried the bag to empty it out in one of the flower beds. But it broke on his feet and filled his trainers with water and drenched the bottom of his trousers. He was supposed to go back to work again. I laughed…`Well, you’ll have to come back in and change.’ He ignored me completely and squelched his way back to the office leaving trails of water behind him and with his dripping trousers plastered around his ankles. Well…I did say summer gives you the freedom to dress as you please…

Next week, there’s excitement around the corner…the trio from Brussels will be flying in for their summer holidays. We can’t wait to see little Louise and I can’t wait to resume my conversations with her…to pick up from where we left off some months ago in Brussels… and spend some wonderful moments with the three of them…lovely meals, chilled  wine and chats on the back terrace with the stars twinkling in the night sky and the crickets chirping in the grass. Oh yes, I must remember to buy some mosquito coils. This time they’ll be staying for a whole month and we’re both delighted…and when they leave… Yiannis and I will lay down our watering hoses and go away somewhere for our summer getaway.

So I shall see you again in September. Till then cheers and have a wonderful summer!