a savage in a mini-skirt

I look up from my book just long enough to note the smell of smoke in the air. Faint but persistent. Not like something from the neighbour's cottage chimney, more like a mist covering the landscape. They say it's on the wind all the way from Russia and the forest fires there.

It's too hot to wear much more than you can easily shed when it's time for a dip in the sea but I'm trying out all the short skirts I usually never get to wear. Just for a few days, no more pressing problems than which novel to read next. Every third day or so, back to the city briefly, to enjoy civilization in the form of running water, the internet, TV and fresh newspapers. Not to forget real coffee. I might be turning into a savage. I even forget to wear mascara out there in the wilderness, and my hair is a jungle. I eye every approaching human being with suspicion - not that there's many. The family doesn't really count, they are savages too. Most of them have enthusiastically embarked on a project aimed to reshape the shoreline by digging up mud and rocks and moving them around, as usual forgetting they are fighting the land uplift phenomenon - our part of the country is rising like an Atlantis out of the sea at a rate of almost one centimeter per year. Not bad when you have a cottage by the sea and can move your picnic table a bit further out every year. The little nieces and nephews soak me to the bone with their water games but I forgive them eventually when they bring me a peace offering of blueberries from the forest. Ah, family.

But I've been clever. I've taken my holiday late in the summer. The family heads back to the city to return to jobs and schools. Only I will be left with the sun and the sea, my books and my increasingly savage heart.