Summer’s returned to the Netherlands in full force. As I write this I’ve got a fan going on full blast, all of the curtains drawn, and all lights off, with the hope of preventing the thermostat from climbing above the 28.2 (!!!!) that it’s currently reading. (The Netherlands has such a temperate climate most of the time that it’s pretty uncommon for people to have AC.) I’m also nursing a pretty bad sunburn on my stomach – the result of a rather naïve belief that I could ‘even out’ my farmer’s tan during a whole day out at the beach in the full sun yesterday…

Porgy’s sprawled under the piano in the office/second bedroom, presumably trying to get as much of her surface area on the cool laminate as possible 😛 We’ve taken to putting damp towels on the ground here and there, should she need to cool herself off, along with bowls of water – quite the home decor we have going on!!

What with this heat wave, I haven’t been craving anything hot (which is actually somewhat unusual for me). Instead, it’s been salad, salad, salad. Including this beauty: sesame rainbow slaw.

Shredded cabbage, raw grated beetroot & carrot, bean sprouts, and a limey, sesame-y dressing. Crunchy, fresh, and zesty, and perfect for summer.

You know what I realized the other day? That we’re already half-way through summer. And every year I look forward to summer and have these ideas of how I’ll spend it – most of which involve frolicking in lovely outdoor settings – and then every year it sort of passes me by before I’ve really realized it. One of those ‘life happens while you’re busy making plans’ sort of things.

So when my friend Dawn suggested we head out to the beach yesterday, instead of fretting about getting ahead on my work or what have you, I gleefully agreed, and it was a blissful day. We lounged about, braved the chilly sea, squealed like kids when we spotted a jellyfish, queued for the ice cream truck, dribbled watermelon down our chins, burnt our feet in the scorching hot sand, and were thoroughly filthy by the time we piled back into the train, covered as we were with layer upon layer of sunscreen and sand and salt (and watermelon).

Just the sort of thing I always imagine getting up to in the summer, but that I so rarely do. Now I just have to keep that momentum going!