With a bit of nostalgia I think of my grandmother, who used to conjure up a saying or a nursery rhyme in every situation, magically fitting every occasion like a glove.
The one that keeps recurring to me today is “Everything in its place and a place for everything”.
It’s a trump I play with my children when I want them to help me tidy up, when they turn our home into a battlefield: but now, instead of using it to my advantage, I dedicate it to them.
It happens sometimes, when summer is approaching, that a threatening cloud on the horizon messes up a thoroughly planned schedule. But today I have taken my decision: let’s wear our armors and let’s go; we leave for a less-know corner of Porto Cervo which can save the day in such situations.
Gregory Park is a hidden corner of Porto Cervo, created amidst the Mediterranean brush behind the Yacht Club, where children have great fun and grown-ups can feel like children again.
Pulleys, wheels, swings, nets that seem like giant cobwebs, climbing walls: each road leads you to a magical place, each surprise discloses a new and more exciting one.
Thus the evening goes by, with a cool and gentle breeze sheltering us from the upcoming summer and with a new world to be discovered.
We meet many tourists, attracted by the cheerfulness of the kids, who stop here and let their own children enjoy the beauty of that unexpected novelty.
I have a nice chat with Nadine, a French girl with three daughters who seem to have come out of a fashion magazine, for how beautiful they are.
She tells me she has been coming here every summer since she was 12. Slightly amused, she points out that her three kids, almost the same age as mine, are the slow-motion version of my three tornados. Even if at different paces, they eventually find their harmony. Lorenzo tumbles for the fourth time and I smile, aware that agility is not in the blood of my eldest son, but it is compensated by the determination to find a balance in everything.
“Mum, you are right, they are indestructible these new armors!” cries Lorenzo, winking at me while his brothers flex their muscles.
Nadine doesn’t understand Italian very well. So I explain that our agenda for the day was different and that the kids hat to pose for a fashion photoshoot with ICEBERG clothes for the BurattinoKidsWear catalogue, an online store of high quality designer clothing.
In order to convince them to collaborate, I had to come up with the story of the armors. Lorenzo, who immediately understood the trick, backed me up in front of his brothers, who enthusiastically got ready in 5 minutes. It was a bit difficult to persuade Giorgio to leave his Hulk gloves at home, but eventually here we are.
Nadine is more connected than me to the virtual world and she is already browsing through the pages of the BurattinoKidsWear e-commerce store. Thus, while I am singing the praise of my eldest son, she is enthusiastically completing her order of half of the spring/summer collection for her three gorgeous girls. I still cannot get used to a world going so fast, where everything is connected and your story can turn into marketing within a go on the slide. This astonishes and excites me at the same time. So I think of my grandmother, trying to guess the anecdote she would have conjured up.
“Rita, a limit is only a door. You just have to open it”
“And if it is closed?”
“Then knock.”
