I’m wearing my peignoir so it’s official: autumn has arrived in Valencia. Not for long though, tomorrow calls for beach time again with 29°. But today it’s grey and everyone is carrying umbrellas to go with their sunglasses. An extra layer is wrapped around bodies on terraces. Terraces know no seasons here. Indoors the peignoir is unfolded out of its dusty box of winter stuff. I do a little dance while lighting candles, playing some old jazz records that I keep at the bottom of my collection, for these exact moments.
The exact moment: it’s noon and I’m shuffling around my flat happy as if it was Christmas morning, but instead it is 21 September, the first day of autumn and Valencia took the task and dresscode seriously. The city that knows about fifty days of rain per year decided to unleash all those fifty days’ worth of water in one night and day. My love spent the night and let me tell you, there is no greater feeling than to wake up in the middle of the night because of rain, just to snuggle up a bit closer and wrap yourself or each other in blankets for that ultimate human burrito feeling.
Anyway. The day started slow and late and that is exactly how I love my weekend mornings. My man still in bed, me picking a record while the coffee is percolating and bread is toasting. I write some words then crawl back into bed. The light seeping in through the curtains is grey and it feels more like evening than noon. If any of us would read newspapers, this would be the perfect morning to read a newspaper, from start to finish. Instead we talked, dipping magdalenas in coffee, grating tomato for the tostadas, changing the jazz for something more rock n roll and dance around the table. All in peignoir. Because life in peignoir is my favourite.
When I travel, I take a peignoir with me. Even at festivals or out camping, I have a lightweight funky coloured number I bring with me wherever I go. There is just something about leaving your hot and sweaty tent with a crumpled face while wearing a peignoir. Nothing says I am home and I feel it too than a peignoir.
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