There was a field up the track.
Each time we visited our hideaway house, come evening my friend and I would retreat to our secret field.
We would be armed with a boom box, a bottle of cheap fizzy wine and a number of cassette tapes.
And we were so clever, my parents would never guess, but our cigarettes were hidden in the tape deck of the boom box, should they ever check.
Watching the sunset. Drinking our wine, sharing the smokes whilst dancing and singing at the top of our lungs.
Once the sun set we would lie on straw mats in our dizzy fizzy state and look at the stars only venturing back to the house when the bugs started to bite, the sunburn from our day at the beach began to chill…or most often that we’d spook each other out.
As the only place to relieve ourselves was in amongst the corn. And have recently started watching horror movies, our gut instinct knew this was the most likely place to meet a gruesome end.
So we would start walking back trying to be brave but end running as fast as we could convinced something was chasing us all the way whilst trying to hold in our fit of giggles.
Those were some of the best days. If only we could have realised it then that they’d be the memories we carried throughout our future, and give us strength that life can at times be beautiful.