Lest I forget the nights spent awake late, far too late, gathered around a crackling fire far out in the garden where the wifi connection breaks and hampers the flow of music but not that of the tales laid out by highschool friends after a week of jumbled tests and gossip about the girls, and with beer bottles strewn about the grass, hidden by the dark, waiting for tomorrow, when, everyone back home and me alone in the sun, I gather them, with the cat in the bush confused at human life.

Lest I forget the days of summer when the heat lay like a thick blanket over the garden, pressing down the shrivelled leafs, silencing the crickets in the field that neighbours our home, and the birds refuse to come out to play, only the buzzard circling under the sun to spot a critter in the dried and burnt grass, not sighting Dad somewhere in his chair under the canopy of a tree, a thick old book closed around his thumb, marking the page for later, when he wakes from a nap imposed by the season.

Lest I forget the penetrating cold of January mornings, when puffs of breath turned to mist like dragons fire, and when layers of cotton shirts, wool sweaters, buttoned up jackets, knotted scarves, hats that I would always forget somewhere, tight gloves, prickly socks, sturdy boots and the effort of biking to school wouldn’t manage to keep the frost at bay.

Lest I forget the four of us like a pack of lions satisfied and lazy after dinner, turned to a tangled mess close together in the sofa, enjoying a cheesy crime show before turning in for the night, making guesses and solving murders, always sending either my Sister or myself on a mission to retrieve tea in the kitchen once the kettle started to whistle.

Lest I forget the world class concerts organised in the living room, with us kids barely ten years old, energetically jumping up and down in the old sofa, tumbling over the floor covered in pillows and blankets, not a care in the world, not a world in our minds, except this house and the village just out the door, only the powerfully loud music sending two little kids somersaulting through the room until collapsing from exhaustion on the carpet and carried to their bunk bed upstairs by two deeply happy and grateful Parents.