Bremen: Summer Relaxation

A day of sunshine and warmth, and the crowds begin to gather on the streets, in the parks, wherever there is space to sit and relax. The beer gardens and restaurants with outside catering spread their tables and chairs across the pavement, into the market square, wherever a small space can be utilised for more custom, for a rush of the leisure classes, the office workers on their free time, the tourists seeking excitement and experience in their day-trips to exotic places. The umbrella is left at home, forgotten for a moment or two, and the weather forecast bodes nothing ill. A sunny gap between the cooler torrents of rain. We have been told that, with the continuing climate change, there will be harsher winters, hotter summers, and – certainly for this area of Europe – considerably more rain. And then the sun comes out, and all is forgotten. Or another storm crosses the horizon, blasts through the streets and parks, soaking everything before moving on, and leaving the thought: that wasn’t so bad for some, and the question of how to clean up for others.

The longest day is behind us, and we move gradually back toward the darkness of winter mornings, winter nights. Suntans fade, the tables and chairs disappear from marketplace and pavement, the leisure hours become no more than memories, easily forgotten. We remember the days of sunshine, and lament those of rain, wondering what to do with our next holiday period, whether to travel or stay at home. Foreign climes call, but the weather is so good here, the chances of a monsoon, an earthquake so much greater there. And the cost of a holiday. Better, perhaps, to sit at those tables laid out in the marketplace and relax between rain showers. Who knows how long this wonderful weather will last.

And then the summer is gone, autumn colours the trees, the parks are littered with foliage and we glance back, in our busy working lives, and wonder what did we do with our summer hours?