It also makes me think about all the fabulous trips I have had abroad, where the weather was glorious and the sky awesomely blue and cloudless and how very lucky I am to have had so many opportunities to travel.
The first time I ever flew I had just graduated and was heading to Italy. As the plane took off I was listening to Whitney Houston's Love Is A Contact Sport. It's a track that means a lot to me to this day - two decades later.
This weather makes my mind wander to sunnier climes and places I have been. I'm not an adventurous person by any means, but I love the idea of travelling. I say 'the idea' because I am useless at it. I once got a nosebleed just getting to Gatwick Airport (there was a lot of traffic and I thought we were going to miss the plane, OK?).
When the weather's like this, I sit in the sun, fire up the iPod with her Summer playlist, and think of 'far away places with (sometimes) strange sounding names'.
Just a few memories ...
The Bay of Naples. Having walked through the Quartieri Spagnoli we finally reached Santa Lucia and its fabulous view across the Bay with Vesuvius looming over us, still living. We ate pizza in its birthplace. In central Naples we ran across Piazza Garibaldi because our lives depended on it. The heat and the noise and the buzz of the place (bonkers!) will stay with me for a very very long time...

...as will the beauty of Sorrento looking out on the Med, high on the Amalfi coast. Drinking Limoncello in a bar watching two toddlers -boy and girl - play out a love story from 'Please play (go out!) with me' to 'It's over' without saying a word was priceless.
...Venice at twilight as the lamps light up and you get a huge sense of history, and feel that nothing has changed there, not in centuries...
...Ibiza Town after dark -I wish I could bottle its beauty and its vibrancy ...
...the Canary Islands - where I have spent my happiest hours

... my first sight of la Sagrada Familia which literally made my jaw drop ...

...held up in a tram jam in HK - the driver leaning out of his window, happily eating a tray of noodles... dinner at the the Revolving '66 with a dessert that included dry ice...
...the cable car to Sentosa Island, Singapore. I apologise to the couple I freaked out by making it sway unnecessarily as I tried to take photos...
and...Paris ...the wedding cake on the hill - the Sacre Coeur - in the shadow of which , having dinner in Artist's Square, where twenty years ago this Summer, I was proposed to and I accepted.
There's so much more to say. I have been very lucky. Sometimes lately though I feel very sad that these adventures might just be all over and far, far behind me. It's likely I will never fulfil my dream of visiting New York City, or see the Golden Gate Bridge, or sun myself in the Maldives.
But at least in the meantime I have a shedload of happy memories to keep me going.
What beautiful memories to have, loved the pictures too. A great blog post xxx
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