A cool evening breeze flows through the grass and laps about my arms and legs and, engrossed in my novel, I suddenly realise how late it is. From the vantage point of the hill-top, where David and I spent most of the day enjoying a picnic and reading, I can see the sun is low in the sky, almost reaching the silver ribbon of ocean on the horizon; night shadows gather round us, and soon it will be dark. So we get to our feet, pack away our possessions - cramming everything into backpacks - then wade through the long dry summer grass to where we’ve left our bikes.
Soon, we’re spinning on uncontrolled wheels down a gravel track towards the main road. Wind-tears blur my vision, although I can still discern the emerald geometric patterns of vineyards down in the valley; and the lake, which was a glistening blue on the ascent, is now muted grey-green in the hill-shadow cast by the setting sun.
We speed on - a glittering dangerous thrill pumping through our veins - our tyres whirring over the rocky trail sending dust flying, the wind burning our cheeks and whipping our hair into a chaotic frenzy, and my thin cotton dress flapping wildly around my legs. Soon the dirt track richochets to a stop and becomes tamed into a gently undulating sealed road.
My heart still racing, I gasp to catch my breath. The road knots and weaves through the verdant landscape, through the lengthening shadows which form pools of blackness, over a small wooden bridge on which our tyres rumble and bump and below which silver water looks up from between the boards. Soon we’re approaching the town where the roads web more tightly into friendly familiar patterns: almost home.
Streetlights now dot the footpaths and stab intervals of warm light into the night, they draw leaf-patterns on the pale faces of cottages, bungalows, shops. We pedal on, legs aching, feet numb with cold, in a weary slow rhythm until finally we reach a neat cottage – set back from the road, dissolving into the darkness, enclosed within a ribbon of pickets: home.
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