the more things change

'Have you been swimming yet?' That's the local greeting these days. It's been an odd spring here. The first of May is when we non-natives usually start jumping into the turquoise waters while the Croatians traditionally wait until St. Anthony's day in the middle of July to take the plunge. Last year- for some reason I remember the date though usually numbers slip through my sieve brain oh so quickly - I began the sea ritual on the 28th of April. So now we greet each other with the question, to ascertain if there is a braver or randier soul in our sphere.
Tourists were plentiful over the first of May holiday when the bars started opening in the morning and all of the ice cream parlors stocked their freezers. But now it's rather quiet again. Some bicycle tours in colorful lycra with bird beak helmets with heads down to get up the hill to where I live. And mostly there's daily work to do in the field - weed the onions and potatoes, tend the grapevines and above all use that weed whacker under the olives and everywhere else you can reach.