There are things about this summer I never want to forget.


In Greece, I came at a time when all my friends were ill and down. In my diary I wrote, Everyone here is ill and down. As I waited to fly there were groups of girls and boys and some were even at the same hotel as me. I remember thinking that, maybe, because the flight was cheapish, that the airline had scrimped on our travel rep. If you imagine Barbie, fatter, uglier, after a life of hard drinking and too much sunshine with Greek men, the makeup she wore at 17, then you're somewhere close to my travel rep.


My nights are spectacularly confused (Oh, you say, count my fingers 12457, and that's it, Liviana Sultana).


(I liked the ends of the nights best. I liked my sandy feet in my bed) I remember waking everyone up as I tried to find a space to sleep in. Swazzie and Cam looking so ill, but being so very sweet (and then too, I remember Cam talking of dreams, of insecurities and Cam driving Swaz up the wall).


I won't lie to you. I looked a zillion dollars in my head with strings of beads and I walked through other people's photographs.


There are things so desperately I don't want to forget. The dress rehearsal in Brighton for the Scissor Sister concert that evening, the after show party too, sweeties. And I thought, as I stood watching them having their hair done (oh my, scissors on the brain, next to the scalp, under the spotlight), stupidly, I wish I had a camera. Ana applied her lipgloss in the base drum and then she sang Papa Was A Rolling Stone a cappella into the microphone (it sounded sweet, I thought), her bare feet and her white thighs when she took off her skirt. Her eye makeup, jaw line, cheekbones, gosh. The sweat in Jake's hair, the spreading wet patch on his trousers. And at the same time I began to feel a little bit uneasy. The man next to me kept his feather boa in my face and there was this, fabulous, aren’t they fabulous thing going on. I think, I realised you just can't love everything because you start to hurt so I think I chose not the love the feather boas. I watched Ana.


And then the concert itself, although, fabulous, fabulous, darling, Swaz and I both agree that they were perhaps a little better at Brixton in April. There was more of an edge to the crowd; it was a little more exciting. Maybe they were just tired. Or maybe we were just tired. I've seen them a stupid amount of times now, from the very beginning in London almost. 7 times, we counted.

I wrote anyway. I wrote a stupid amount.


Our beautiful road trip, the hotel rooms and the junk food we ate in the car.

I want to remember being close enough to touch Johnny Borrell but being too scared to.
And I never want to forget the way Dalston sounds when he's singing it right in front of you, but more, when it fills your ears and mouth in CL's car, when lines are texted to you, saying don't go to France.


German MTV, beautiful Ruth, and I'm on the bed with all these sleepy, beautiful girls.
And it happened very quickly, I can't say no.


Then I ran with no shoes to catch Anna and Katie. Anna said, I'm crying, feel my cheeks, and I did and they were wet and warm. Behind me Hannah said, I'm not really a crying person. I'm crying on the inside.


N and Claire were there and everyone else left and I tried so desperately to put off saying goodbye to them.


On the envelopes of the cards given to me, Camilla wrote Olivia! LK started, Dear Livi and Kat called me Honey and enclosed useful information about Paris, which was far more glamorous than where I was going.

I said, Goodbye Pizza Hut. Goodbye tube. Mum said, Well, let's not blow this out of proportion.


We know all the words to these love letters and these love songs now. Now I live in France.


I miss you, N, CL, Swaz, Jack, Jess, Dan, Sam, Anna, Hannah, LK, Pybus, Ruth, C, Kat, Camilla, Laura, Darling and Gemma.

Love,

Liv xxx