The Summer of Nineteen Sixty

The Summer of Nineteen Sixty Lying on a blanket by the loch side on a summer’s day I close my eyes and listen to the quiet. I hear the slap, slap of the small wavelets lapping on the pebbles and The plop of some brave fish as he twists and turns his way through the cool green water. Above my head I hear the distinct call of the peewit and can imagine him hovering high in the sky. Into this calm comes the soft rustle of the rowan tree, then, the more stringent sound of a wicker basket being opened. I smile for I know what comes next. The chink of crystal glasses, followed by the pop of a champagne bottle being uncorked. I open my eyes to see my lover smiling at me. Glug, glug, the sparkling liquid pours from the neck of the bottle. I reach out and take the glass of fizzing bubbles, unable to keep my eyes from straying to the new diamond sparkling on my finger. And in my mind I hear again the words of love he whispered a few minutes ago. These, to me, will ever be the sounds of the summer nineteen hundred and sixty.