Quite suddenly...

I remembered Yakushima and the daily routine. You getting up before dawn and riding away to visit the monkeys. Me staying in bed till I couldn't sleep any more. Spending the whole day at home by myself doing the laundry and other chores. Making lunch (always miso soup with something else), reading the notes that I had photocopied and brought with me from Edinburgh (Stevenson and also a lot of Troilus & Criseyde, wasn't it?). Going around taking photographs of clothes drying on the hangers outside for the lack of anything better to do. Reading Bill Bryson.

When you came home we'd always walk to the only shop in the village together. I'd buy some kind of snack and sometimes the lady in the shop would give us little things (a packet of salt made on the island, some special rice). Flowers occasionally, or pomkam from the roadside stalls. Then we'd go and walk along the beach and pick up drift wood and beach glass and anything else that lay at our feet. Remember how we used to make up things to do to pass the time? Coming up with probability problems to solve or watching your endless supply of pirated films? (oh and we had that REALLY big fight over Serenity) Dinner for two in the living room on the low table - always more miso soup and some kind of fish.

Strange to think of it now, so much has changed.