One day of summer

The day before yesterday was the first warm day we have had in June or July, and it wasn’t even that warm. The northerly flow of drier air has pushed the fog offshore, and the skies are a clear blue, but the forecast still said, the way it often does in summer here, High 25 except 19 along the coast. The morning was still and cool and the harbour completely flat and there was promise for the day, but anyone who lives along this coast knows about the afternoon wind, the southwesterly that comes up as the land heats up and the warm air rises over the land and the cooler ocean air has to rush in to fill the gap. It turns the bays and harbours a deeper blue and flecks them with whitecaps and darkening gusts that scud across the water. And it keeps the warm days cool, often cooler than you want them to be.

While it was still morning, before the wind came up too much, I drove to my mother’s so I could do some banking for her. Then I took her out for a drive, the first time she had been out for about two weeks, because she had had a bad cough and was worried about pneumonia, and she hung her white cardigan over the edge of her walker. I told her she probably wouldn’t need it, and she didn't, since of course this was a summer day, our first this season. We ended up at the Point Pleasant Park look off, in a Handicapped zone because she always keeps her little sign handy to hang on the mirror. The harbour was blue, the day was warm, she had some of my ice cream cone (caramel apple crunch, a “new flavour” at Pinky’s), and we watched people with their animals and a few boats sailing. By the time I took her back so she could get her lunch the wind had come up some more but it still wasn’t too cold.

In the afternoon Lorraine and I drove to see my brother and his wife in East Chester. My brother and I decided to go out in their sea kayak even though the wind was high and waves were roaring across the bay from Big Tancook and breaking against the remains of the old wharf. After we came out from the cove, the waves hit us and the bow of the kayak sometimes crashed hard coming down off one of them and sometimes water came rushing over the bow and pooled around my sprayskirt. What struck me, happily, was how warm the water was. I hadn’t expected this, especially after the weeks of fog and cloud and rain, but my brother pointed out, which I had forgotten, that it didn’t get very cold at night during that time. The other factor, of course, was that the afternoon wind was blowing the surface water, which was warmer and lighter, into Mahone Bay and into the cove. So after we went out to the end of Graves Island, and he saw two dolphins but I didn’t, we carefully turned the kayak, rolling around on the edges of the waves, and surfed our way back to the cove. We hauled the kayak and I told him I’d like to swim. So we did, and it was almost warm, a real delight. We checked the debris brought in by the wind, mostly seaweed and kelp and jellyfish, one a beautiful grape-coloured specimen that flowed over the edges of my hand, and then carefully picked our way through the breaking waves and up the rocky beach.

Over dinner we all joked about this day being summer, and now that it was ending we were glad we had been able to enjoy it, because tomorrow we would move into fall, or into more of that indeterminate season of fog, rain showers, 100% humidity, and highs of 17 (if we were lucky). However, we were wrong, and the next day, yesterday, was in fact the second day of our summer, high hot sun in a blue blue sky. As for today, it was neither here nor there, but our fingers are crossed and our swim bag is packed because there is a small hope that the weather pattern may have finally changed and the magical season of summer may stay. If it does, we’ll be ready and waiting!