Which is to say, no summer at all. Most of the early to mid-part of the 90’s were El Niño years and when we weren’t building arks, we were unpacking winter wear to stay warm. I can remember taking my nieces to the Colfax pool with Cissy and the kids would be blue with cold and insisting that they did indeed need to stay in the water rather than seek out a nice sunny patch pool-side. I was wearing bikini’s then and between my pasty skin (because I was a sun-block fanatic) and the frigid water temps, I often looked quite corpse-like after an afternoon of swimming.

The scientists are ready to declare this an official El Niño summer. Great for those who live in areas where the weather is too hot and too dry but in places where “warm” and “summer” are relative and often mutually exclusive – it totally bites.

It’s rained for days here. The temps will hover close to freezing the next couple of nights. I have already mentioned to Rob the necessity of planning a winter vacation because without a summer to break the unrelenting “not warm” theme this year, winter – which was too long by half last year – will not be do-able this coming season.

As I have mentioned, summer here is extremely short. It really doesn’t get warm – if it’s going to – until July and by mid-August it’s early fall again and the days are noticeably shorter. With such a short season, summer is sacred. Weekends find towns and cities half empty as people head for camp grounds, lake lots and other outdoorish adventures. Canadians are like Europeans when August rolls around – hard to find.

When summer is a no show, it shows. On people’s faces and in their demeanors. It’s a country full of SAD’s. And it’s not pretty.

The temperature is 10C today. I am making soup in the crock pot and writing while Dee drives my mother crazy in the other room. Mom is ready, I think, to get home.

Rob is installing the new dishwasher. There is an upside to rain, tiny but tangible. He would have worked on it regardless because having two extra mouths to feed this last week and a bit has given me more than a little taste for what it must have been like living on the farm back in the day when food prep and clean-up comprised a hefty chunk of the day. If I haven’t been cooking, I have been washing dishes or doing laundry or driving since before Canada Day. Or at least it seems like it.

Be sure to check in tomorrow sometimes for #fridayflash. I have a zombie short that’s not too terrible.