۸۰ - یکشنبه ی تابستانی

A Summer Sunday

Today the sun was warm; the sky was blue with a few white clouds. It was a good day to pick strawberries; it was a good day to go to the beach.

I drove to a pick-your-own farm where people can pick their own fruit and buy it. There the fruit is very fresh and delicious. The owner of the farm gave everyone a row to pick their strawberries. Everyone was wearing sun hats. I knelt down on the straw between the rows and picked the big juicy red berries. I tasted one; it was warm from the sun.

When I bit into it the juice was sweet and strong. When three big pails were full, I went to pay for them and picked up some recipes for some strawberry desserts. I packed two of the pails in a cooler with some ice, and the other one we would eat at the beach.

I met my daughter at the beach. She had a soft pink blanket on the sand. This beach is beside a lake, and across the lake about 50 km away the large city can sometimes be seen. Today the wind blew cooler air across the lake over the people on the beach. There were children playing in the water. One man helped his son dig holes in the sand, and the water ran into the holes. One lady held her children’s hands and walked down into the water. Families climbed over the rocks and sat on the last rock where the water was deep.

Teenagers rode bicycles and roller blades along the path beside the beach. Adults walked and ran along this path, carrying water bottles around their waists We sat on the blanket and ate sandwiches of meat and lettuce and strawberries from the pail. We talked and read books and lay in the sun, relaxing. We wore sunscreen, but our skin was getting hot. How cold was the water? We walked across the sand that almost burned our feet, to the edge of the water. She went right in and lay down floating. I put my toes in and felt the chill through my body. I went up to my knees, then my thighs, but that was far enough! My whole body was cooled down; I headed back to the blanket to lay in the sun again.

Soon it was time to go home, she was coming to my house for supper. We drove down the highway with the windows open and our hair blowing in the warm breeze. We cut the strawberries up and made a strawberry dessert with cake and ice cream. We sat outside in the backyard under the maple trees with the birds singing around us and ate our supper. It was a perfect ending to a relaxing summer day.