Lazy Days of Summer - Not!

This song reminds me of my childhood summers. Until I was about 10 my parents would take us kids to a family cottage with my Mother's sisters, her mother and all the grandchildren during the summer school holiday - which here in Canada is from late June until after Labour Day at the beginning of September.

The men would all arrive on the Friday night and leave on the Sunday night. In those days women did not generally work out of the home, particularly once they married and started their family. One of my uncles was both single and played a guitar and so the weekends were we had singalongs and a party atmosphere prevailed with the small cottage overflowing with family.

The women folk would have each other's company and a break from routine and the heat of the City as they helped one another out minding the children and shared cooking and cleaning tasks. We would have a glorious and happy month or two of playing in the woods and afternoons at the beach with our cousins.

It was 1963 when this Nat King Cole song came out - just a couple years before his death and when I hear it I think of those cottage days. It was one of his last 2 big hits - the other hit released just before his death was pure jazz - After Midnight.

Of course, the best known Nat King Cole song is Unforgettable, and in particular the version that his daughter released as a duet with her deceased father, thanks to the help of technology. If you listen to this song and close your eyes and think of that "unforgettable" lover from your past - or better yet, if your "unforgettable you" is still in your life today - in either case, you must agree with me that it is a wonderful love song with a great sentiment.



According to Wiki:

His last album, L-O-V-E, was recorded in early December 1964 — just a few days before entering the hospital for lung cancer treatment — and released just prior to his death. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A "Best Of" album went gold in 1968. His 1957 recording of "When I Fall In Love" reached #4 in the UK charts in 1987

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This song (along with Unforgettable) has to be right up there in the list of all time best romantic songs.




However, I digress, back to the topic - Lazy Days of Summer - Not!

Those of you who regularly wander by for a visit to my pages have probably noticed that I have slipped to maybe 2 or 3 posts per week. I wish it were because I am out at the beach, sitting on a nice patio with a glass of wine with my "unforgettable you", or even out on one of my "marathon city walks", which last summer was the standard exercise strategy for summer time. No such luck!

The sad truth is that I have been holed up at work in these last several weeks and putting in 50-60 hours over the 5 work days and then on the other two days of the week I have been trying to both keep the routine things of life in order and progress my novel planning. I am not complaining, the extra work hours are productive and well spent and I am putting away money for my extended holiday trip which I hope is next spring.

So you will excuse me if these blogs in the past and then next few weeks are light and breezy - things quickly put together and without major thoughtful analysis. I think many of us bloggers are on music binges andI think this is particularly nice since we all are expanding our musical experience with this. I trust that we are all on "summer blogger's hours", if not because we are too busy with work, then because we are too busy with R&R (which is Rest and Relaxation if that accronym is not in your English vocabulary). Of course, sharing the music we know and love is an easy thing to do and appreciated all around, I believe.



I took the above photo last night of the Toronto Skyline from a different vantage point from my usual snaps. This was taken from a place called the DOCKS, which is an adult sports and entertainment venue just to the south east of Downtown. I went there to watch a friend play soccer - it was the championships. It was about 8:00 at night and a storm was coming in from the west and shortly after I took this I had to run for cover as it poured rain. Will write more about the Docks (and also the Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival in my TorontoIsMyTown blog tomorrow.