sweet summer stuff

last saturday morning i woke up happy. ok no, early, i woke up early, to catch the bus to the village. but it was going to be a wonderful sunny day and i was happy. happiness comes so easy and unexpectedly and is still such a surprise.
i spent the whole bus trip staring out the window and thinking how beautiful and perfect everything was.
it's that time of the year when everything's just a tiny bit past its brightest, slipping toward mellowness. the shine is still blinding though, but we feel it, we know.

mum's gazanias

these roses bloomed in the aridity of our yard - they gave it their best shot.

weeding the flowers...the same thing everytime. first you barely see the flowers, then you unbury them and they're nice.
but this weekend was much more about the fruit.

guess how many people ate out of this monster without coming even close to finishing it off?

good and ripe and handpicked from a pear tree that was still very young when i was young.
i told you i always accesorize my books!
also now my mum knows lots of stuff (lots more than she wanted to hear) about jaime lannister. 

afternoon light, so much better. have i said it before? i remark on it every year like it's the first time, how much cleaner, more streamlined, landscapes are in the last part of summer.

this used to be the stream that separated my aunt's house from my grandma's. now sadly dry for  at least a few years. i used to cross this like 20 times a day...on this visit, it was about 6 times back and forth. yeah. 

special shoot for the queen of flowers :)

there are renovation works and stuff going on in my aunt's yard/house. 

then i did some portraits. they're sitting on the same chair, it's like an interview series:

the flowers/plants before the evening watering. i actually took this picture for the sake of the funny bushes that we were laughing about last year. apparently it was a bad year for that type of bushes, either that or they didn't quite take to our yard.

failed instant selfie, which is still awesome because the patterns in the wood right next to my head look like an alien or something

and the lovely way the new barn door goes with my summer dress

official visit: the adults talking grown up stuff (all i talk to my aunt about is my cousins and obama, pretty much)

we were offered some of the tomato and basil crop. nice garden she's got there!

then i took a twilight walk in the cemetery, because of course.

stealth picture of my father cleaning his mother's grave. 

old crosses in wild grass are the best

aaaand the best catch of the evening: my father found this guy in some bushes by the house and carried him on the patio in order to force him to eat some dog food. he did some barking in the beginning but then calmed down. he didn't eat though (duh) so we decided to leave him alone. sorry, buddy.

he was pretty big, and it's amazing how quickly he moved.
so, it's official: we have a family of hedgehogs living next to us. so cool.