I'm full of good white wine, and an even better meal. I walked down to the beach, not all the way to the shore, but just to sand just now. If you can believe it, I get "severe weather alerts" here from time to time, and invitably it's just big surf. Tonight is the biggest surf I've seen since I got here. Even on my balcony you can hear it, like cannon-fire in the distance. Waterloo-on-Venice, and the La Garde is advancing. Down by the beach it's even louder, a huge barrage - one avalanche of water after another. Huge waves, and here they are normally so mild.

The sky is perfectly clear, and past the lights of apartments and the boardwalk, the stars are beacon-bright in the sky. It's cold. Wave after wave, titanically crashing. The sky is clear. It is cold. The waves are big.

I wish you were here to share it with me.