Memories from our seashore house

It was almost afternoon of a hot summer day when my family decided to eat our late dinner in the front porch of our seaside house, so as to enjoy the amazing sea sight at the same time.  While I was preparing a fresh salad on the outdoor dining table and my husband, who was lying on one of the build-in sofas, was completely absorbed in reading a book, our children, Jim and Irene, 11 and 10 year old respectively, were playing board games about 30 meters away from us, sitting under a large old olive tree, in the middle of our front yard.

The garden around us was at full bloom. The freshly cut green grass was decorated by hundreds of beautiful little wild flowers with yellow, purple, red, blue, orange or fuchsia leaves. Busy insects, mostly bees and butterflies, were sucking their sweet nectar; flies were wandering here and there and cicadas were “singing” ceaselessly filling up our ears with their “mate song”; ants, moving in long rows, were carrying germs, tiny morsels and various leaves cut from trees and flowers; beetles were rolling lumps of dung into balls and burying  them to make their home or to use them for their food; and ladybugs  were hunting their food, small aphids that had covered some vegetable and flower leaves.

Few meters away from the central olive tree, where a long row of apricot and almond trees were standing as a tall green wall towards the eastern fence of the garden, dozens of little birds were sitting, either on the tree branches that were hidden among the thick leaves or inside flowered bushes that were lying in front of the fence, in order to rest and to be protected from the burning sun.

Suddenly, my husband got up, approached me and asked for some very tender lettuce leaves in order to feed our canaries. He chose some and placed them through the canaries' cage frame. Inside there was a family of three sweet birds. They were looking somehow exhausted by the heat of the atmosphere: a couple with their two days newborn baby bird.

“Now, it’s our time for lunch!” my two kids shouted and started running towards the house. In a few minutes, after having washed our hands, we took our places at the dining table and started eating eagerly while we were watching a beautiful wooden ship passing in front of our seashore.