Mermaid here, mermaid there, mermaid, mermaid everywhere...

The summer that ended was influenced by mermaids. They appeared in books, films, various artworks and my drawings. It was incredibly strange because starting from July we were nowhere close to the sea or ocean. We were in the US for our Homeleave after the departure from Rome that has been our home for the past three years preparing to move to Luxembourg, our next posting. It was a time of disquitening discontent. The light summer read tends to be a great remedey for this malaise, so the search for the books was on. My love of the sea brought me to the "One way ticket" by Tricia O'Malley. It was set on a small fictional island in the Caribbean, and since we spent some time in that part of the world - I can easily relate to her description of the island life. The writing was good, the characters - entertaining and I decided to investigate this author further. That is how the mermaids of the Siren Island were discovered. The Siren Island series are heart warming romances set near and in the water that introduce the magic (I simply can't can't can't use the "magik" spelling of the word - every time I encountered it in the text, I felt it was unnessary hiccup in the otherwise good prose) of nature,intuition, and of course magical creatures.. Considering that one of my all favourite fair tales is "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen, and the fact that as a little girl I badly wanted to be a mermaid - the books were very appealing. A bit later going through the Netflix offerings I found H2O - an australian show about three young girls who turned into mermaids. (The first season was fun - I loved the underwater shots and a sunny feel, but later episodes lost their appeal very fast.) In August we arrived to Luxembourg - a landlocked country, not a sea in sight. Imagine my surprise to find out that the city of Luxembourg has a legend of a mermaid. According to it, the said mermaid, Melusina, was the wife of Seigfreed, the first count of Luxembourg. He met her on the bank of Alzette, was captivated by her beauty and asked for her hand in marriage. She accepted his proposal but put forth two conditions : she would never leave the rocks of Alzette, and every Saturday she would have alone time in her room. Seigfreed and Melusina lived happily ever after until...Until the friends started to urge the Count to see what was those Saturdays about. And so, one fateful Saturday the Count peeked into Melusina's room and discovered her secret. Melusina cried in shock and disppeared into the rocks never to be seen by her husband again. It is said though that her spirit reappears every seven years. Who knows perhaps I will be lucky enogh to see it...

The Statue of Melusina was put on the bank of Alzette, opposite the Abbey Neimenster, in 2015 in commemoration of the 1, 050 anniversary of the capital city. It was made my Serge Ecker.