Friday June 18th

Day 60

Reaching up for the washing on the line before the rain comes I notice my freckled brown, red arms.

I always feel like a different person when I’m suntanned. Closer to that child I was in Africa - looser, carefree, at home.

From early this morning, our last day here, before breakfast even, my universe has been a sun-lounger by the pool. At first under the bright glare of a cloudless cornflower blue sky. Then under the shade of a tree - name unknown - with generous small leaves, tiny green berries and grey speckled branches. On the table next to me, my books and a pen, sun cream, my camera and phone, a plastic glass of water and a bowl of pink gold cherries - and some pips. And my husband not far away toasting to a burnished bronze. The only sound is the birds swooping and chattering in the orchard beyond. And occasionally the shriek of a peacock.

I stay here,sometimes dipping in the water, slowly turning into that other creature who doesn’t mind about the lines in the neck and the sagging of the skin. The one who blends into the heat and unravels in air as warm as silk. Alive.