Day 183

Sweltering today. Even the breeze with the occasional sharp gust is hot. Thank God for the shade. I’ve always said it’s the shade that makes the heat bearable, even enjoyable. The mountains across the bay are still shrouded in haze, even though it’s gone 3pm. For some reason the days seem very short right now (in time not light, although the light goes so quickly at just before 9pm it’s like someone’s turned the lights out.

I like the heat, most of the time. I can’t imagine living properly in it, though, and the heat I wish for in England when I’m not on holiday is of a more gentle kind, one that doesn’t obliterate alertness or the planet, but one which allows me to sit comfortably in the shade at lunch or when the working day is done wearing just shorts and t-shirt. Like I said the other day, I don’t really want to leave – I’ve grown to rather enjoy doing nothing. I’ll think of the end of this no more.

Yesterday, Giorgo(s) from our café came and sat on my sun lounger and we had a long chat (and he just came over as I was writing this and asked if it was really true when I’d told him he was going to be in my short story, and I read him his initial appearance in it which I’d written this morning, and he approved, although he had, I think, hoped to be a swashbuckling hero rather than his magnificent self) about everything and nothing, mainly about how difficult it is to run a small business on your own, about how his eyes and ears need to be everywhere all the time, and how losing a difficult customer can sometimes be blessing, and why I just sat in the shade and read and wrote rather than enjoying my holiday. I said that was me enjoying my holiday, because that is me doing nothing, my nothing. The oddest thing about that man is that his kindness overwhelms me every time, and when he’s gone off to his business, there’s always more than just one tear in my eye, and an ache in my gut which tells me we may have come across each other before, in some other life. We might even have defended this place against some danger together, as warriors. It’s not a far-fetched idea. Or maybe he just makes everyone feel like that. Whichever – it’s a gift.

Yes, this is me doing nothing, and I don’t want to stop.


AGGIE’S ART OF HAPPINESS – CHAPTER 136