After many days of rain, wind and temperatures that pushed Spring back to some far far away galaxy, finally a lovely sunny day pops up.
It’s Sunday. We have invited friends for lunch. It’s the perfect first time for a lunch outside, in the garden.
We can really feel the “spirit” of this new life.
Lunch starts at a time which is probably closer to the Italian one rather than to the local one: so friends in the neighborhoods have already finished…that’s probably why 2 G’s friends show up just after the first skål with the IPA beer.
Almost surprised by finding many people around the table still busy with their pasta and glasses gleaming in the sun, they say “Hello G.” and, moving their eyes to all of us, “…hELloo”…
This represents the end of formalities, so the two young friends feel ready to enter the house: “we have to take some weapons and play with them!” is the only thing we can hear while they run to G’s room… Of course G. and his friend at the table cannot wait one more second and run after them. The easy going life is simply unbelievable and fantastic here.
But it’s just the beginning: after (parents’) lunch, kids decide they have to go and join other friends in the neighborhoods, so they run away from the garden and disappear. The four of us at the table, with previous lives spent in big cities on the two opposite corners of the world, look at each others: our eyes trying to convince the others’ wide open eyes that it’s normal, that we are not in Rome or in the Bay anymore, that here everything is safe, that the kids after all are already 7 years old, they are almost teen, quite close to the adult age…..
In some way we succeed 🙂
That’s when a friend of us shows up and brings the 2 ladies out for a walk.
“Where is your dear husband, my friend?”
“He is working hard in the garden!”
Immediately, our sense of husbands’ community lights on: we grab a few beers, double check that E. (almost 10!!!) wants to stay home alone, beautiful in the sun, creating her bracelets, quickly check that our grown-up-but-still-7-years-old-kids are still somewhere around here, jump on our bikes and cycle to rescue …ops ….meet our friend, whose hard work in the garden must have made thirsty for sure.
Yes, he is quite thirsty…
Skål!!!!!
The Viking beer is great, the fruity one is interesting and very good in the sun, the German one perfect for the occasion…
The sun is still high and warm and we could go on forever, but unfortunately it is time to go back home. Cycling, chatting about little and big things, we get back home.
We have dinner at the Italian time, in a Danish strong sun light:
The only difficult part of the day is now to convince kids that it’s time to go bed: having sunshine doesn’t mean that it is not sleeping time, but of course it’s a very good excuse to keep running and watching cartoons…
After some time, parents-kids 1-0 and everybody is in the bed.
We fall asleep smiling as this was simply how a great day looks like.
lukkasbru 