June arrived, and with it, the heat of May was swept under the rug. We had storms, and rain, but still stifling warmth. Thunder and lightning here was welcomed by me; I love storms, and these were revitalising. Walking back home from the metro at Parallel, from a babysitting job (‘cuidando los ninos’), I was happy and felt so alive – imagine: twilight, dusk, whatever you care to call it, and torrential downpour, but that summer warmth that means the rain does not freeze you. All the dust and dour day on your skin cleaned off with that sweet cleansing kiss from the earth – like stars at night or a full moon. Speaking of stars and the moon, I can see stars from where my head lies in my bed on my pillows – and in the morning and early afternoon perhaps one day I will get a little burnt from the sun shining down on my face in the room of our fourth floor flat. This is all because my cheap slatted bed has one too many breaking slats and I have moved the ‘mattress’ (more like a mattress-sized foam cushion) to the floor, using the bed on its side against the wall as a wall display for postcards and a hanging place for drying jumpers. Enough of commenting the weather and furniture changes – time has passd, with Primavera Sound music festival, two exams, assignments, weather changes, people leaving, too much drinking, visits to Apolo (at the end of my street), my time here will soon be over. I still want to go to Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca but money may not stretch. I still need to buy flights for my return trip home, and work for my final exam – but one finds oneself unable. The sun shines in my room and I will get up and go out and do some work in a cafe or a library – there is one on La Rambla, perhaps too hot, and definitely closing at 2PM for lunch, so I will go to a cafe, where I will choose a drink, and drink it to Barcelona! To a year that changed my life and I had not imagined something like this could be possible. To afterparties that start at 6AM on Sunday morning with an opening roof, with Tiga playing, and with smiley-kisses; to long nights of watching movies til your eyes can’t stay open any longer; to facing my fear of swimming in deep water in the sea at Garraf and to meeting the sun at sunrise with a crazy half dressed dip into the sea before cycling home dripping wet and with my hair wrapped in my scarf, stopping at DinoPan for a breakfast-before-bed – to all these days and many more before I leave. As the clouds move and the sun rises and the moon appears again round and full and white, the days will continue to go and I will come back – not good at long goodbyes, a ‘see you later’ like the French ‘au revoir’ is the best short goodbye. But with my dad yet to arrive and a friend and a pre-birthday birthday celebration and a festival in Bilbao (that I have yet to provoke the payment of an accidentally thrown away ticket to Lidia), there is still time, and this lapse in the running of time and happiness is merely one of those surreptitious reminders from the world to not forget that this life will end.