2016 was a great summer. We spent the month of August at the home of family friends who hosted us in their cottage a stone’s throw from the sea. The house was beautiful, overlooking one of the rare still wild beaches of the Adriatic coast and surrounded by a beautiful minimal-chic garden with inside a small spa area with a mini hydromassage pool. There were nine of us sharing those spaces and that beauty, four adults, four children and Tago, our Labrador. In the morning we would wake up very early and have breakfast in the garden, then quickly put on our costumes and run off to the beach. Those mornings I remember full of laughter, sand castles and chatting under the umbrella. Lunch was always quick and light, often eaten at the beach. But sometimes we would go back to our friends' house and improvise imaginative picnics in the garden.
The afternoon was devoted to total relaxation. The owner of the house and I spent it reading, lying on the chaise longue, or in the shade under the macrobonsai in the garden. The children and men, on the other hand, were lulled by thehottub. Meanwhile, Tago slept blissfully under the Canary Island palm tree at the entrance. They were beautiful days, immersed in the quiet. It was very difficult, at the end of August, to pack up and go back north but September was waiting for us and with it all the commitments and daily routine. The sadness of the return, however, was tempered by the promise to meet again the following August for a new holiday together.
