After work

I left work while the sun was still high in the sky. I had taken my Nikon with me, hoping to find some interesting things to capture on it on my walk home. The sun was coal-hot, turning both people and animals lethargic, lazy, unwilling to move. And I was going to the beach, for an hour-long mini holiday.

Children threw themselves in the water, belly first. A couple of giggling pre-teen girls were sitting on a picnic blanket under a tree, sipping juice, their magazines open before them. Beautiful suntanned bodies glistening with sun lotion were sensuously splayed out on the scorching sand, trying to absorb every available photon that came falling from the sky. I took off my shoes and walked on the shallows, my feet getting sucked in by the mud-like surface.

Something very inquisitive in nature nibbled on my toe. Squinting at the bright sun light, I left the tepid shallows and walked barefoot on the dry sand, among the myriad broken shells. After a whole morning at work, with moments of annoyance that threatened to accumulate until they exploded into full-blown fury, this was just what I needed. I treated myself to an ice-cream. After all, I have A Big Fat Arse to Grow.

Summertime, and the living's easy, as Ella put it: