Not Fully Packed

Not thirty seconds in, I said,
“Turn back.” We had forgotten something:
the summer sun had not been packed.
We found a place for him beneath
the front passenger seat. Sometimes
you have to improvise when packing,
especially when the car is full:
seven Mediterranean
thunderstorms (all safely strapped in);
a two-day heatwave (in the cool-box);
a swarm of insect bites (to give
us all something to moan about);
and the slightly guilty feeling that
one really should be doing something
other than sitting in the sun.
 
The sun: I can’t believe we nearly
forgot to pack him. He was quite
the model passenger, not once
complaining that we’d almost left him
behind (I suppose that he was glad to
escape the gloom of Middle England),
or that he had the worst seat in
the car (“I like the shade,” he joked).
We had to let him out to stretch his
corona several times, which led
to one or two odd looks (these vanished
when sun flashed his smile. “Always works,”
he laughed). And everything was fine
for three whole weeks, despite the fact
that we forgot to pack his hat.

(30^th July, Bananas-dels-Aspidistras)