The sun beat down on us during the day and I was itching, feverish to get outside into the afternoon sun. Lunch was wasted bites between rays, coconut moisturiser and dreams of iced coffee. We slunk off for dinner after hours, as though the evening would span out forever, and looking back it really felt like it did. Like those days in Italy that all tangle into one continuous sunset and sunrise. Crisp flat pizza, ice cold glasses of water, a jug of Pimms, salad, gelato and espresso. The sun on my back like it would actually burn, the later half of the meal spend with golden sun on my face. So many moments forgetting where we were.
Sunglasses and the smell of warm air mixed with stone baked pizza and coffee. The drive home was lacquered in gold, spilling over the cars and fields like honey. The elixir of everything I hold perfect. I catch glimpses of my hair, fiery brown and kardashian-esqe in the sunlight and I keep going back for more, feeding off the high. The evening was hot and rushed but my God it was good. For hours we worked out in the garden, me in an oversized tee and Pete in trunks, fresh water around our feet, manual labour the exercise I need for these next few weeks. Like Italians, Pete and our neighbour stood round the porch drinking beers. I tried to commit everything to memory, the smell of the wet slate, the slow sunset that crept behind the houses, the air that was warm and thick. Neighbours that wandered in and out of our lives, drawn together by the light.
Our windows cracked open at the widest point, we slept under the heavy sky and, for the third night, I had strange dreams driven by the heat. Mornings are stretched out, hazy, buried in romance and contempt. I am more in love in these days than ever before. If there is only one thing I have missed most above anything it's the stars. Those, I know, still exist.
