Terrace

Waking before dawn, the mountains across the channel wait patiently for the new day. Albania, only a short mile away, looks mysterious and deserted. No thick forests of pines and olives but scrubby bushes and brown-ish yellow areas between. Grass perhaps, or dusty rock. At this time of day the sea is calm and a soft translucent dove grey: no boats yet to churn the surface and pierce the quiet with their hornet outboards.

The sun creeps ups, heralded with a fanfare of pale rose before the light suddenly edges up above the line of peaks with an almost audible dazzle. Once an inch arc of the shining disc has emerged, no longer possible to look directly, only see the soft-focus slopes become dappled with long bushy shadows which grow shorter as the temperature climbs and the sea is flooded with sunshine.

The narrow necklace of sea changes over the hours from milky greenish opal to flashing silver. At noon it is brilliant turquoise over the white stones of the shore lying quietly like perfect eggs under the surface, and where the water is deeper, shot with aquamarine. Later there are pools of dark sapphire under the cliffs, and beneath the overhang a dark mysterious lustre of jet.

By the time the sun is sinking, the mountains are tired. Crushed together all day, silent in the baking heat, the light drops from their west faces and they slump into the sea, the colour of bruises.