Flowery summer dresses

One day as I came home from work on a classic, sunny summer day in Italy, my old next door neighbour, standing in his garden in the white vest holding in his stomach above his trousers and a hose pipe in hand, joked with me about me not being the classic Englishman. Nodding his head in reference and in the direction of my garden as he asked if I ever needed a hand, probably based on seeing that mowing my lawn was still a mammoth task in me qualifying myself of English green fingers. I am not a gardener and I'm not in to flowers. Infact the only ones I know the names of really are roses and tulips. Oh, and the yellow bitty ones, mimosa, only because the street sellers in Italy have armfuls of the stuff at every traffic light on the 8th March - International Woman's Day.

However, when it comes to summer, flowery dresses are something I love. And before you even go there, I do not cross-dress you freaks. I mean to say, I love to see them. I'm talking about when you see a beautiful girl walking down the street in one of those dresses in all of her splendour.

There is something about it that gets me, that turns my head and holds my breath for a split second. How a girl passing me on the same street, strutting her most elegant and stylish stuff in winter, somehow becomes so much more radiant and less serious. A light, airy feel about her compared to winter.

Ok, I have worked in fashion with womens' clothes and had to learn the basics of these garments in order to sell them, this is one thing. But I'm not talking of the season's trends and fabrics. Well, if I think of soft fabrics and getting close enough to run my hand down it and how it hangs off her... (Andrew tells his mind to behave, especially as Shakira's song 'Rabiosa' has just been on MTV...) I'm talking about how she wears it, what it gives her and what it brings to my day. How the breezy colours still manage to silhouette and show off her figure. Now, if it is your better half, then you just have to trace your finger tips down the thin straps over her slender shoulders, the glimpse of bronzed summer skin, before it cuts off half way down and flutters over her thighs, or even carries on full length and blooms on downwards all the way down to her feet. And yes, then how it would slip off under your delicate touch... Sorry, it's Shakira's fault influencing my mind like that.

Oye mami, vuélvete loca, aruñame la espalda y muérdeme la boca...

In a flowery summer dress a girl can float instead of walk, an air of grace beholds her. The colours blooming and guiding you in to her garden and its perfume, as if I was a bee attracted to the pollen. I don't stare, well not usually, I am much more subtle than that, but I can't help smiling. It's just damn nice to see as the summer sets in.

My garden maybe what it was, I am trying to make some effort in the quintessential English gardner department of my being as my dad was. I turn to look at my little indoor bamboo stick ceremonously stuck in its pot. My Yucca sits next to it trying to edge ahead in the long, slow process of growth, a few spouts shooting as if trying to drag the bamboo (and me) up with it. But they are plants, not flowers. I know that much at least.