It might get hot near the end.

I don’t want to become one of those old guys who’s only preoccupation is the weather, but we do need to talk about it. 

It’s still May and the temperatures in places like Belgium, Holland and Germany are in the 30’s , now I don’t want to draw any hasty conclusions but may I just say that it’s not friggin’ normal, whatever ‘normal’ still means in this age of abnormality  being the new normal.

It’s hot and I can’t handle it, if I were to convince myself that it would stay like this -for ever- I would consider setting up home in a cellar. We homo-sapiens don’t belong to the same family as lizards, this is not the environment we should be living in -end of discussion. I don’t get people who just lay in the sun all day and think it’s the best way to live. Anything above 28° and my brain goes into seizure, all I can do is find some shade or airco and wait until normality returns. But what if it didn’t ? What if this is the start of the ‘end times’ ? What if it just started getting warmer and warmer ? When would the water start being worth more than oil? At what stage would we start attacking each other for the last few drops of water? 

Just the thought of this being the way it would end for us all, sends my heart rate even further up the scales. A slow suffocation, the gradual descent of man into barbarity followed by an even slower extinction. Bye bye world it was good while it lasted, but you obviously have found a way to rid yourself of this cancer called mankind. 

Next week it will rain, next week the temperatures will be back to normal, next week we will yearn for some of this sun again, but not now- now we can only huff and puff and hope we get through it. 

Don’t forget to hydrate.  

Clothes, just clothes.

Clothes might not ‘maketh the man’ (or woman) , but they have become a statement, a flag, an introduction to who we are and how we liked to be seen. 

If clothes weren’t important we’d all just wear what’s easiest to put on and take off, we might stretch to a favorite color, but if they were of no importance then we would go for ‘easy’ . 

But we don’t always go for easy, so there is an importance attached to what we wear. Clothes fit occasion and function, uniforms, (office suits are  uniforms as well). 

In our ‘free time’ we like to dress to impress, whatever impression it is we are trying to convey. We may want to ‘tempt’ the opposite or same sex, we may be looking for a partner and want to look at our ‘best’. We may want to convey a message “look how relaxed I am, I care not about what people think of me or how I’m dressed” and probably put a lot of effort into the attire to convey that message. 

I like my clothes to be ‘easy’, easy on easy off, no tight belts around the midriff, no ties, no tight fitting shirts, I need to breathe and I need to be able to sit comfortably, that is foremost in my choice of attire. My profession affords me that kind of freedom. Sometimes I might get the urge to ‘dress up’ and put a suit on, but it won’t be more than once a year. 

I like to sit on a bench and do some ‘people watching’ , seeing what clothes they wear, and try to figure out what message they convey, who they are, what they are doing, how they want to be seen. Clothes can be a sort of membership card to a ‘sub genre’ of music, or allegiance to one or other trend , team or political ideology even. 

There is a trend by some men to wear a heavy chain on the outside of their trousers, it has to be in a loop for the real effect, probably it’s connected to their wallet and waistband, it looks like it’s trying to convey that the person who owns the chain is a bit of a rebel, in reality the person has probably watched a lot of American films about rednecks,hells angels or rockabilly music. In my imagination the chain is connected to a piercing that is usually called a ‘prince Albert’, through the pocket. So which ever way you look at it the chain is attached to a dick, only joking guys ,only joking.

All joking aside, isn’t it great to be living in a region where we can virtually  wear whatever we want? As long as we obey the decency code. Isn’t it great to be living where authority figures have hardly any say in the way we clothe ourselves? O.K. you have to show your face, but surely that’s pure politeness and general decency. (whatever your religion.) 

From the garden;

 Here in the garden it’s always peaceful , thousands of organisms, insects ,bees, flies, bugs, plants, trees and me. I’m the only one not ‘working’ , not contributing to the general well being of this little patch of nature. Me being human it’s probably best that I interfere as little as possible, our track record is not good and it hardly ever ends well for nature when we inflict our ‘idea of how it should be’. Humans - not the best curators of the planet, you wouldn’t trust them with your Rose Garden let alone with the rain forest. 

Every so often I am compelled - by my fear of what neighbors, family and friends might think about the ‘state of the garden’ - to interfere. Mow the lawn, cut back bushes,trees and remove exaggerated weed patches, but I like to keep my ‘meddling’ to a minimum. At the back of the garden there’s a specially designed ( :-)  ) ‘wild area’ that I leave totally alone. A small space, left to weeds, wild flowers and all the creepy crawlies that live it up there. Bees love it, butterflies do as well, in fact they love this ’wild patch’ more than the more sophisticated carefully laid out flower beds of sterile garden centre ‘blooms of the year’. (must admit I do love Garden Centers).

My style of gardening I call the Darwinist approach, plant it - feed it and if doesn’t fit in it will die. Let nature steer the garden to what it should be in this climate, this temperature this region. Looking around in my couple of square meters of paradise always makes me ask the question ‘why do we make such a differential between ‘weeds’ and plants? What’s the difference? There are weeds that bring the most beautiful flowers, while some plants fail miserably, that’s why I like to keep the balance right. I try not to let one side of the argument become the ‘norm’ -both sides get equal ‘bragging rights’ on my patch. In my garden I put my chair firmly on the middle ground- and I try not to take sides.