Running Away

So it turns out I wasn’t as sanguine about the approaching dark months as I thought! Having had some things in my diary cancelled and comparing the relentlessly dreadful weather for the coming week in North West England with the clear blue skies of South West France, I’m afraid the latter won the day. So I hopped on a cheap flight back to the place I’d left barely two weeks ago to enjoy some much needed me-time after a summer ‘holiday’ which had proved more exhausting than relaxing and a year that has been physically and emotionally challenging. 

It is one of our rituals to rush down to the sea for the first sunset of our arrival, and as I drove down in my little hired Fiat 500, hoping to make it in time before the golden orb disappeared behind the horizon, I mused on how we had done the very same dash on our last night here just two weeks ago. But oh, what a difference those two weeks have made. The sunset is earlier, the light has changed, the holidaymakers have gone, most things are shut and there is a tranquillity which is tangible. 

I got to the top of the dune just as the sun touched the darkening seas, its diffused rays painting the sky with licks of red and pink and gold. I joined my friend down on the beach and poured us each a tumbler of wine to toast our happy reunion in this place we both love and which she is lucky enough to call home. We stayed there talking till the sky was dark, the stars were out and even the late evening surfers had called it a day. The early October night was warm and still, the golden sand soft and cool underfoot and all was well with my world as the ocean lulled us into a false sense of security…

(To be continued)