Aide Memoire

Two weeks ago sitting alone at a table of a small restaurant in a Corfu side street I sent The Famous Writer a single word text 'Temptress'  accompanied by a wonky photograph. What can it be when one woman sends such a message to another? When alone women talk of many things, of books and ideas, of men and family, dieting and face-lifts  all of which have their temptations but when it comes to leading  another astray, to excess,extravagance, (what you will) I'm prepared to guess shopping for oneself is at the top of a woman's list. And so it was, I had bought this

We had seen the necklace on our outward journey, a long lunch hour spent seeking shade in the alleys of Corfu town, in the time between our plane from Gatwick landing and our departure for the tiny island of Paxos,  I had tried it on, reluctantly relinquishing it to the lovely shop keeper who didn't mind how long we lingered and longed after his jewellery but only bought postcards (themselves things of beauty, black and white images of 1950s Greece).  But when on my return journey I had nearly a whole day before my flight I succumbed.  Thus my text message.  And this rather unflattering photograph

TFW had employed all her writerly skills to persuade me to buy (all by text) 'the stones are precisely your colours', 'they will remind you of Greece during cold grey winter days', 'the shop keeper is so nice...'  How could I not buy?

It has sea blues and greens

 Milky stones as pale as the early morning light through my bedroom window at TFW's house

Jewel colours of the trinkets in the tourist shops

 Amber like the setting sun through the olive trees in the garden and

 pearls as white as the sun bleached pebbles on the beach

And in a way that only our good friends know they are 'my colours' and the colours of the clothes I make and wear, like my girly top

and my sorbetto blouse

But perhaps most telling of all is what is actually in my stash, blues, greens and wine red

Colours all around me  and memories of the alleys and back streets of Greece

How could I not love it?

xx

c