Steep'd in Honey'd Indolence

I know that is the wrong poet for these literary shores, but I generally prefer Keats to Byron or Shelley (The only Byron I can recall is the fabulous Gaior; wholly inappropriate but wildly romantic: 'Who thundering comes on blackest steed with flashing bit and hooves of speed' (or something).

Anyway, today I discovered utter contentment. How can I convey the complete bliss of lying on hot rocks under a wide blue sky, listening to the swell plosh against the shoreline ? Or the deep contentment of occassionally slipping into the water and bobbing about on the wake of yet another vast yacht cruising past? Or watching the fishes shoal around the breakwater - little electric blue jobs, about the size of a mackerel, flitting about in swarming slivers. Then getting out and doing nothing again, perhaps laughing to myself at the sheer unalloyed pleasure of doing nothing at all. It only needed a bronzed God to emerge, Poseidon-like, from the waves, and my birthday would be complete.

Yes, another year has gone by. Thanks for all the messages and calls. As you can tell, it has been a bit of a blinder: wandering the hot and dusty footpaths of the Cinque Terre villages and lemon and olive groves in the morning and doing absolutely nothing in the afternoon. Nothing is such a nice thing to do after a month of being on the road, you know. Yet, already, I feel the call of the mountains and stealth bike, I fear, is also itching to be released from his (expensive) cubby hole here in Portovenere's poshest hotel and hit the road once more - for the Tuscan hills and Chianti shire. It is a tough life, I tell you.

Now, before I see just how many gelati it is possible to eat in one day (most of my calories seem to come in liquid (iced tea pesca) or semi-liquid (aka ice cream) form these days), I will summarise my plans for the next few weeks for all those who are talking or thinking of joining me (go on, you know you want to!).

1. Tuscany and Umbria for the rest of September, reaching Rome by October 3rd (hope you can join me Jen, David and Guilliamo! Be so cool to be there for Will's first birthday!!!!!!! In Rome!!!!)

2. Amalfi the week following (if you can make it Phil?), before getting the boat for Sicily (Val?? Still interested in seeing the old country again?)

3. Planning to monster up the adriatic as the weather gets worse and reach Ravenna by end October / early November (Dan, Fran, this will be the Abruzzi zone).

4. Then Bologna, Mantua, Padua, Ferrara etc. in some kind of logical order before Venice and the Veneto (Rob, still okay to drop round yours and say hello to the family?)

5. Crossing the Alps again by the Reschen pass (1,500 m) Hopefully it will still be open in mid / late November, otherwise I guess I'll stop around Trentino. (Gill, these will be the Alps again, if you really want mountains!!)

Old Hags - that Etruscan spa has a place waiting for us, with hot and cold running masseures, you only have to say the word.

Off to have a slap up meal and sing myself happy birthday en terrasse now.

Vx