My little lizard.

Every morning while I was taking my coffee and breakfast and was reading my book on the grass lawn I was paid a visit by my little friend the lizard.
Not always was I able to take pictures of her/him!

 Ooops a mushroom.

 And a sparrow.

 Spot a helicopter....

 ...while reading The thread.

I quote Hislop:"I can't remember most of the names of the people....but stitches I remember almost every one I've done."
The cardinal almost ready.

 People playing on the sand. Althoug the colourful straws look beautiful they definitely are littering.

More mid July beauty.

I might bore you with this type of blogposts but I would love to share with you all the lovely moments I had during summer. At first I thought of making blogposts according to theme, reading, cross stitch, sea glass etc. But that was too difficult for me to choose all the relevant pictures among the 900 I took this summer.
The cardinal continued being stitched every day.Each picture of the cross stitched piece was taken on a  different day.

 I tried all the time to catch photos of insects. Here is my continuous effort.

 Got you!

 I cooked gemista (stuffed tomatoes and peppers) many a time! It is one of our favourite summer dishes.

 The cardinal again!

 I have this type of plant growing freely around. I think it is called arugula. Well it can be eaten in salads or with yoghurt and a bit of garlic and olive oil.

 The cardinal yet again!

 I loooooved reading Victoria Hislop's The thread. It is the saga of a little girl who ends up living in my city Thessaloniki. Please do read this book. It is excellent. I enjoyed reading it along with my coffee even on those rare stormy days.

 Storms are good for collecting sea finds afterwards of course.

 And I kept warm and cosy in Marabeth's beautiful lighthouse T-shirt.

 A tiny moth.

 One stormy day I had this amazing encounter. While sea glassing I met this woman on the beach who was throwing some gemstones in the sea and generously gave me some. Her name is Elysabeth Williamson and she is a yoga trainer and was in Thessaloniki to teach partner yoga.We had a lovely chat together. You can find her website here.

 These are the gemstones she gave me to pray with.

 Birds were swarming on the lawn.

 Love sea foam sea glass.

 And I found this little car after so much time that someone lost it!

 Finally the cardinal again!

In the middle of July.

More summer photos.
I loved sitting early in the morning outside drinking my coffee and reading my book.
I loved seeing the dew drops on the grass and feeling them with my bare feet.

 That's my little coffee table outside. I cleaned it up a bit as it got stains from the weather. I made it with collected sea tiles.

 My reading those days. The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne. I had read it before and loved it once again.

 Little by little my chairs were ready. Hubby painted them off white. I had the fabric bought from IKEA and had it sewn. Unfortunately the colour faded too quickly.

Dream a little finished.

 I hang IKEA lanterns from the tree over my chairs.

 Hubby made a new shadow puppet figure.

 There is my afternoon corner.

 Enjoying myself.

 A bit of redecorating.

 Listening to great music and arranging my threads for my next cross stitch project.

 A sea glass festival poster sent to me by a sea glass friend found its place too.

 And another gift from my dear friend Gia.

 And I started stitching a cardinal on that day!

Thanks for welcoming me back.

When one is away for 45 days then it is impossible to bring the house back to normal in a couple of days. And also my mum needs me. I have to stay away from the computer to put everything in order.
But here are some more photos.
So I continued with my cross stitch. It is Dream a little by jiffy and was sent to me by Lisa in the States.

 The two armchairs I had found on the curb got their sanding.

 And catch the trade winds in your sails found its place on the entrance of my beach house. Everyone loved it.

 My neighbour's cat. What eyes!

 Sea finds.

 A broken blue button. This summer at last I found some buttons. I could say it was the button summer.

 See the sea?

 I was told these are edible. I found them by the beach growing in large quantities.

Another post in the evening! I will have to blog twice a day to catch up and show you all my photos.