Dinner, Sicily

After 11 years of adventures together, Valentina and I feel more like family than friends.

There isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t talk, our skype sessions seem to never end and whenever something happens, she’s the first person I want to tell.

But she lives in Sweden.

No matter how much you talk to someone, how up to date about each other’s lives you are, you still miss each other. While we may have the occasional virtual lunch together (phones propped up against our water glasses, chatting away over sandwiches) they just don’t feel the same as real ones. So we try and make the occasional adventure happen. She visited me in London at Christmas, and 6 months later we met again in Sicily.

Diving right back in where we left off!

Catching up over donuts.

We chatted away about everything that’s happened over the last 6 months, from business decisions to the Paris proposal, and all the things we’d do with a whole week together.

As the sun began to disappear behind the jagged cliffs, we climbed back up to the villa.

Showered off the sea, smothered ourselves in fragrant oils, slipped into fluttery soft silks and popped open a bottle of something chilled.

Unintentionally matching, in the way friends have a tendency to do.

Great minds think alike…

…fools rarely differ!

Black sunnies // White silk jumpsuit

Blue sunnies // Similar white dress (original sold out but this is from same designer)

We booked a very simple villa which looks out over the sea with its own steps down to the water. Perfect for sunset sippin’.

Villa Funcia, named for the rock it looks onto.

If you take a glass of wine down to the cliff edge in the evening all you’ll hear is the crashing of waved below, the wind rustling through the pines and each other’s laughter as you make up for lost time.

For our first night together we booked a chef to cook supper.

(Not quite as extravagant as it sounds, the villa rental team offer it as a service!)

Leaving us footloose and fancy free.

We used the last of the evening light to explore the grounds and toast to the start of our newest adventure.

By the time we made it back to the house, dinner was served.

We dined on local specialities, caponata, pasta, fish, pistachio everything, followed by dessert.

Watching the sky slowly turn from bold orange to a deep indigo.

We watched the candles burn down and the stars appear one by one.

All alone but for the singing crickets.