He doesn’t like to think of himself as Shôn’s fuck-buddy, though that’s how Shôn describes their relationship whenever Geraint tries to pin him down. He considers it such a vulgar term, and so American… and it hardly reflects the reality of their nights together when mostly they just cuddle. He’s Shôn’s teddy bear really, but Shôn’s image of himself is far too butch to allow for such a passive interpretation of their liaisons. Geraint doesn’t know how much longer he’ll let him continue to shape this part of his life. Monogamy and a joint mortgage on a three-bedroomed semi, preferably with a garden, is what he hankers for… a quiet and secure marriage. But they retain their separate lives, their separate flats, their separate circles of friends, and come together only once or twice a week, and for holidays, because that’s what Shôn wants. So Geraint takes what he can get; after all, Shôn is a lot of fun to be with… he’s gentle, kind and generous (which tempers the bitchy streak), and when a teddy bear to cuddle is the last thing on his mind, their sex is pretty accomplished. Shôn is the only man Geraint has ever loved. And in four years Shôn has never so much as whispered to Geraint that he loves him.

‘What about him?’ Shôn quizzes, pulling Geraint back from the edge of pensiveness.

‘You’re like a dog on heat,’ Geraint jibes.

The track ascends quickly through the terraced vineyards, taking them along uneven pathways that crown the dry stonewalls and up crude, steep steps that connect the terraces. The vines have been recently stripped and most have been pruned back ready for the winter, their few remaining leaves blotchy with red and gold. The grapes, the albarola, vermentino and the bosco wither and wizen in some shady spot, a vital step in the process of turning them into sciacchetrà. The trail takes them past isolated huts that defy the precipitous gradients with stubborn sturdiness. Around these now forsaken vinedresser’s shelters, clumps of prickly pear rear up like tethered, menacing beasts, to deter the inquisitive rambler from exploring. Where the terraces have been abandoned and recolonised by native heathers and squat pines, the maquis has reclaimed the derelict refuges.

Above the vineyards, a sea of white-crested turquoise a thousand feet below them, the path, though obvious enough, is rough. Gouged into the face of the mountain, the original course is obstructed time and again by boulders from rock falls. Where landslides have gashed the sea cliff’s contours, haphazard cairns mark an imprecise direction across the rock fields.

‘You’d think they’d have put a sign up about the condition of the path,’ Geraint carps.