THEY LIVE IN SUMMER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 308, 28 December 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

THEY LIVE IN SUMMER

By Elizabeth Upton

BEACH houses, like butterflies, live only for the summer. Kissed to life by the sun they flaunt their light and colour all through the long, hot days. When winter comes they close up, pale and lifeless, not to die, but to sleep. Some. fortunate few are refuges for week-end "escapists" all winter long, but i fhe majority, apart from an occasional [ visit to cut lawns, and a brief awakenj ing at Easter, are deserted from autumn to spring. And so you find tbem if you happen to drive down to your favourite beach some winter week-end when everyone else is playihjfgolf in town. So lonely and forlorn they look, grouped among the trees or dotted along the beach, the lids drawn down over their eyes and no breath coming from them. Their lifelessness is emphasised by the lack of

flowers—red geraniums, hydrangeas and nasturtiums—that bloom so riotously 'round them in summer. At night, this stillness is even more marked. Walking along the beach, you watch them fade gradually into the winter dusk, with no cheerful lights to rescue them from obscurity. Behind them the trees loom very black and clear over the brow of the hill and the sea glimmers like mercury under the fitful light of the moon. The torn clouds racing across the sky seem to fill the night with their movement. Somewhere a morepork cries. You turn back to the warm, friendly light of your little house, leaving the trees and the sea and the birds in possession. But at dhristmas time and in the holiday weeks that follow all this is changed. It begins with the first

Miraculously, everyone arrives home just when meals are ready. In straggling twos and threes they come up from the beach, sun-soaked, with sand in their hair and fiery faces, delighted cries, "Here we are!" ai Dusk steals down over the world with grown-ups and children tumble out of a the lingering caress of high summer. A car and fling open the doors of theii big yellow moon rises over the tops of bach. Bright striped curtains are drawn the trees, and the stars seem small and back and smoke comes puffing out of tht very far awav, dimmed bv its light. At chimney. Beds whose wire mattresses intervals the 'long swish of the sea flows have stared nakedly at the ceiling look inland, and from the top of a tree the civilised again with clean sheets and tui calls. blankets. But now its cry is not the only sound Joyful young hands haul fishing tackh to disturb the quiet. The music from from corners. Before long, swim suit* numerous radios drifts out over the and towels blossom gaily on windowsilli night, and voices murmur from veranand grass, and sandals are flung across dahs. Now and again a child's voice, a doorways. You can almost see the bean I'cal of laughter comes clearly through of contentment on the faces of the litth the air. Bws and girls stroll along the cottages. beach hand-in-hand, or lie on the cool People dash in and out. call to eacl sand - Lights shine through the darkother from bach to bach. Children com< ness ' aml belun « the windows of the cotbursting in to mothers bedroom, disturb ta S e! ?' with their curtains undrawn, ing her afternoon siesta. l* op . ,e are sdhouetted, reading, talking, «■»«• it. * . plavwg cards. Mother, can we go for a swim now t»h. nS«»i.f ;<* W..1 *i - j It's an hour since lu=„ch.» rfStJFta "sjSe'V ifJK '£ Mum, look what we caught on tin removed from the noise and crowds of rocks." And a small slippery sprat i the city. But the sea and the birds and thrust under her nose—and then left t< the trees are no longer wholly in possesmoulder at the back door. • sion.