Oh JOY!

Summer is here! It really is!

I went to read in the library today. We rode there on our bike, in the blazing sun, around 8 kilometres and back. I read this book:

(source:amazon.com)

It´s about a busker and his singing cat, and then they loose each other. I love all the Julia Donaldson books, but this one is dear to me because the protagonist is an old, bearded busker instead of a cute kid, and I love that. I take it as an opportunity to tell the kids about the art of street music, and to teach them to always throw money in those hats, or at least dancec around and clap their hands, because I sincerly believe that our towns would be very empty and sad without street artists.

I had around 15 kids there, today, since it was so hot. I did a cute and easy craft which, I think, I´ll show you next week, and I made up a melody to the Tabby and Matt song from the book and had the kids sing along, so it was sweet. But I kept it short, so we could all go out to play in the fountain:

And get soaked:

Our city center really isn´t that pretty, but when they switch on the fountain and all the kids start splashing, it´s so, so awesome. Sometimes I wonder whether the nearby H&M store sponsored the fountain, since so many mums go to get dry clothes there afterwards. I was clever today, though, and had brought a spare set for each kid.
Which was, apparently, necessary.

Sometimes I feel like everybody is only fully alive when it´s summer. Summer is so, so much better than everything else!

While the kids splashed, I got my guitar out, and for the first time in, what I believe more than a decade, did a little busking myself:

I didn´t put a hat out, though. I just sang lots of happy songs, Banana Pancakes and I´m Yours and Viva la Vida, and had some kids come sit close by who requsted a couple of Christmas songs, so I sang those, too.
At first I felt a little shy, only plucked to entertain myself, but then it started to become real fun, and people smiled at me and I smiled back, and I had really forgotten how awesome it is to do that yourself - the magic to transform a place into a music video to a song. I might go out and do it again, soon :)

Oh, and Ronnie of course added to the show with some... ahem... pole stuff:

That´s my girl!
She made that skirt herself, by the way. The "sandals" she made to go with it - I´ll show you tomorrow, okay?

So - my day was splendid all around, from the morning beginning with a chat with my favourite coffee vendor, being invited to icecream by my class, writing mails back and forth with a woman in Taiwan who´s coming to visit us with her family on my birthday, and this brilliant way to spend an afternoon - singing, reading, splashing. All great.
To make it even shinier, I come home to a new Tyler Ward cover:

Ocotber 16th, here I come! :)