We drove out to the country on the weekend - a quick reconnaissance trip to grab some springtime loveliness - because dandelions are blooming all over Latvia this week - pieneņu laiks - which is always the most beautiful week of Latvian spring. Even though we've just spent almost two months soaking up Australia's eternal summer, over there the weather is so spectacular and relentless that it kind of becomes... mundane. Like a naturally beautiful person who looks good at any time of the day, and dressed in anything. One of those people who don't work at their beauty and just live with it. You get used to looking at them after a while. But Latvia in spring and summer is more intense. The beauty is more like a mousy girl getting a glamour makeover for the ball - she's spent all year looking ordinary, and now it's all on - solarium tan, new haircut and colour, slimming undergarments and a glamorous designer frock. You see the girl and are surprised that it's really her! She looks fantastic! I almost didn't recognise her! Its that quality of amazement that you get when you see Latvian countryside doing its thing. Surprise and delightfor its splendidness after the last bleak months.
We rolled up to Kugures on Saturday arvo and hopped out of the car, and all stood there for a good few minutes, dumbstruck by the total sensory immersing experience - the air was still and warm, and every breath you took was saturated in a sweet scent of honey. All around us the fields were golden from the millions of dandelions that had bloomed everywhere. Still and deserted, with a yellow carpet stretching on and on, both sides of us. The orchard and trees around the pond were blooming with cherry and apple and dogwood blossoms. The big oak tree in front of the house had the hint of bright leaves beginning to poke out, while the lush long grass beneath our feet had us ripping of our shoes in no time, the kids running through knee-deep flowers to look at the storks in the nest and check out how the cubby-house survived the winter.
In Stephen King's novel Lisey's Story, which I read last year and was creeped out by (in principle I don't read Stephen King 'cause he freaks me out, but sometimes there's nothing else to read) he describes a kind of parallel world where the main hero goes to when he is in psychologically dire straits - called Boo'ya Moon - a paradise which embodies the full ripeness of summer, where by day there are exotic perfumed, colourful flowers everywhere and there seems to always be a beautiful sunset or sunrise in the sky. Slightly deserted and with an edge of danger, though. King's description of this land is what came to my head over and over during the weekend playing outdoors at Kugures. (By night, mind you, Boo 'ya moon became a nightmare land complete with monsters and sinister noises, but my comparison stops way before sundown).
So the Tiss swung and swung on his new swing and I did't get a scrap of work done. Jem and Mikus dug up my garden and we planted some seeds for the summer vege patch (which will be very modest this year, we started a bit too late) and generally lazed about in the sun with yellow pollen-stained knees. Bliss!