On this special weekend dedicated to the Midsummer celebration there is no place for serious thoughts about the health and medical topics.
Only good wishes for the best of health for all and pleasant feelings connected with the light and warmth coming to our homes.
In my warm, or better to say, already hot hometown, we opened the swimming season a few weeks ago (with the sea temperature around 23 C). Because of our warm climate on the 45th parallel we don’t have many special customs celebrating the solstice, although St. John’s day is well known and recognized, with its bonfires, in the villages.
However, I was lucky to have spent some time recently in Latvia where I was kindly invited to join their Midsummer celebrations in the countryside. We arrived at our hosts practicing singing Jani and Ligo songs. Then, I walked into the fields with a group of ladies to pick flowers and, with them, I wove my own garland – I still have it! In the evening, our group got together, gathered around the big bonfire and we sang old traditional songs (some of us had to follow the book with the verses and music J), while eating cheese with caraway seeds as well as many other delicacies and drinking beer and wine. With hardly any dark hours, not many people went to sleep.
I love this solemn and emotional tradition that people from the North Europe celebrate so strongly and full heartedly. I wish to all my friends and people whom I’ve just got to know very happy Midsummer and a good, sunny season ahead.
