Our Summer Holidays

Ahhhhhhh, the summer holidays... that magic season when we traditionally go off to some idyllic destination to sample sea and sun and lazy days on the beach and renew our energies. What would we do and how would we cope if we did not have this yearly break from our labours, this annual excursion to sunnier and lovelier climes where for a few days we can live out our dreams and cast our cares away?

Taking it easy by the sea, hand in hand, exchanging wide-eyed glances, enjoying the moment as only a child can. For a moment life stands still and the ocean expanse fills one's being and gladdens one's soul. We were at the dawn of our lives and out there was a world waiting to be discovered all over again.

We were young and vigorous and full of the joy of life. We ran into the sea that late afternoon, kicking and splashing the water into a bubbly white foam around our legs. The warm water felt good on our skin as we threw ourselves into its soothing embrace and half swam half rolled around in one joyful happy-go-lucky group of friends.

We all partook of those eye-popping tecnicolour cocktails that one only indulges in when on holiday and on show. Their bright primary colours, exotic mix and decorative slices of fruit matched our exuberance and holiday spirits and we drank them down without thought to their effect on our body or our pocket. They were supercharged but so were we!

They were carefree holidays when sun and sea and fun and love merged into one whole to make a heady potion. Evening romps along the seashore where Nature conspired to sharpen our senses and heighten our delights. As the sun went down, it threw its dying but dazzling rays across a swelling sea and tinged the sand with gleaming flecks of gold. The sea surged around us, its tingling coolness lapping at our feet. They were summer days that promised much and made our spirits soar. We had youth, we had passion, we had time to lose, and we were happy.

But all too soon those balmy days were no more and summer's lease of sun and fun was quickly at an end. We came back to live on memories and hopes, though with the knowledge that there would be another summer and another summer fling.

And now, many years later and in the tightening grip of age, we look back on those heady days of youthful passion and irrepressible bravura and wish we could do it all over again if we but had youth on our side. We still go on summer holidays to foreign climes but they are not the ones where once we went and we no longer do what we once did. Summer holidays are still with us, but the days of carefree living in the sun and impetuous loving on sandy shore are long gone and will not return.

As the song says:

"♫ We had joy, ♫ we had fun, ♫ we had seasons in the sun, ♫ but the wine and the song, ♫ like the seasons, ♫ have all gone. ♫♫ We had joy, ♫ we had fun, ♫ we had seasons in the sun, ♫ but the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach. ♫♫"

Ahhhhhhhhhhh....... those summer holidays.