on a weekend (in bath)

When did cars become such tasteful colours? What is behind the shift from highly-saturated paint options to these soft sage greens, dusty blues, cinnamon oranges and persimmon reds? The new white and grey cars almost shimmer like champagne. I would love a long-read article about this. 

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David forgot his phone at home. He also didn’t bring his wallet because he never brings his wallet anywhere anymore. In the end, this proved to not be too big of a problem, thank goodness, but it brought into stark focus how impossible it is to get into your email, hotel booking apps, and car parking and charging accounts from a different device now that 2-factor is embedded into everything. When everything works, sure, technology can be great. But when something doesn’t work, it’s a real pain in the ass and I seriously consider going full analogue.

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Speaking of not working, why why why is the O2 mobile service in Bath nonexistent? What do you mean I’m in the centre of the city and can’t use my phone unless I’m on Wifi?? I’ve had cell service in the middle of South Dakota, so how is it possible that Bath, a city of roughly 95,000 people, is a dead zone for one of this country’s three (only three!) mobile service providers?!

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Okay great, now I’m obsessed with Ofcom’s mobile coverage checker map.

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Speaking of maps, Bath is one of those cities that really turns me around. We have just walked away from our hotel, zig-zagging down cute shopping streets, and wound up… back at the hotel. We have done a big loop. As someone who generally has a pretty good sense of direction, I feel like my internal orienteering arrow is spinning round-and-round in this town and I really have no idea where I might be unless I’m literally right next to the river.

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There are a lot more people having a big night out on the town than I would have thought. Isn’t Bath supposed to just be Jane Austen hen dos and bookish students arguing about Russian literature in pubs? Why did I just walk over sick and see a drunk man fall off a bench (yes, it was quite funny).

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Just remembered while filling my water bottle at the hotel that our old gym had sparkling water on tap and ugh, god, it’s so annoying how enticing that is. 

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Restaurants & Bars that we went to and would go to again, Bath edition:

• Solina for pasta and light-as-air tiramisu, but get yourself on the waitlist quick because they don’t do reservations.

• The Dark Horse which is a real proper bar with a unique lived-in vibe. Someone told me that holding the claw of the wooden eagle that sits on the bar will bring good luck (tbd). Oh, and they have Fernet!

• Brac has a great spot along the river in a quiet residential neighbourhood. Their focaccia was incred and it was the perfect plate-fellow for their eggs in purgatory, which I ate with gusto in a beam of beautiful crisp sunlight. Quite a few chic older people reading the Sunday papers with their coffee and lots of parents with young children. Real wholesome.

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We stopped in Swindon to charge our car on the way home and learned that the National Trust head office is right next to an enormous outlet mall. (Doesn’t feel right, that.) The building, Heelis, is a striking grey architechty kind of building, the type of building that is often next to something like a native wetland or a prairie, all very tasteful and important and sustainable. But instead of a wetland, Heelis is next to a glossy energy-hungry eye-sore that encourages over-consumption under the guise of getting a deal (one teen walking out behind us bragged to her friend that she “just bought EIGHT new perfumes, it was mad”). Now, because I’m in the car and bored I wanted to look up who was there first, and I was shocked to learn that the outlet mall (pre it’s 2015 refurb) pre-dates Heelis by almost ten years. Which begs the question: why did the National Trust, one of our most buildingest of building organisations, decide to build their “innovative and sustainable” HQ that they describe as “an architectural gem” right next to this (I’m sorry) monstrosity? I really want to know.

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Whilst I’m over here asking important questions: why is the EV car charging infrastructure in this country still so garbage??

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Bought a 3 litre Kilner fermenting jar from the horrible outlet mall while waiting on the car to charge. Now we can ferment kimchi and sauerkraut at the same time.

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Sometimes it’s nice to listening to a sporting event in the radio and remembering that your imagination is actually such a powerful thing. Like omg why am I crying with relief listening to the end of this rugby match??

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Going away for the weekend 👍👍👍

Coming home and none of your usual weekend chores are done 👎👎👎👎

hungerford in autumn

A few snapshots from our trip to Hungerford this past weekend. Though I still maintain the habit of carrying my camera with me most places, I’ve been absolutely rubbish at taking photos for myself these past few years. But I’m trying to train my eye to get back into the habit of seeing.

I’m slowly working my way through Braiding Sweetgrass, taking my time with every chapter to absorb the wisdom and lessons. In it, Robin Wall Kimmerer recounts how she revitalised the pond behind her house in upstate NY, explains how much graft and care she took in nurturing the habitat back to life. “Everybody lives downstream,” she writes, “the water net connects us all.”

It’s incredible to think about how much work goes into making sure all these spaces that we share are ecologically balanced, safe for wildlife and humans alike, and protected. We’re very lucky here in the UK to have so much of our countryside open and accessible, and I’m thankful to everyone upstream who makes sure that these spaces stay healthy and sacred.

Going away with friends

It’s so fun, going away with friends. Sharing a kitchen and finding out which of these absolute heathens puts knives in the dishwasher, learning who falls asleep during every movie, who’s always suggesting we all play a game, who seems to have a catlike aversion to showering (me, I am the last one). It’s fun to see your friends in pyjamas, to find out what jobs they volunteer to do, to learn how much ribbing they can take before their morning coffee.

We spent the weekend in Hungerford at a friend’s brother’s house. It was my favourite kind of British home* - absolutely full of treasure, but nothing was precious. A house whose rhythms are set by the two cats, two dogs, and lizard who all live there and need regular feeding and care. Welcoming and well-loved, but with some bits that truly make a house your home - broken door handles that need to be turned just so, dusty base boards, those piles of papers that could absolutely go in the bin but someone thinks there might be something important in there! so they’re kept, just in case, in a neat stack on the piano. A home that is teeming with life, where nobody has to be too careful, where anyone can flop on the sofa or help themselves to whatever’s in the fridge or take a quick snooze in the sunny conservatory without fear of rebuke.

Our friend’s brother’s house backed onto the marshes - as I believe they’re called - that run through the town and oh, how I loved to be near the water! Clear and clean, a small river flows through the marshes towards the River Kennet, with a canal punctuated with locks another hundred yards along. Boys off school during half term were fishing in the shallow water, scientists were dragging nets through the riverbed and counting bugs, canal boats were moored up alongside the bank with plumes of smoke cheerily filling the air with the smell of warm autumn fire. Though I like where I live very much, I miss the streams, ponds and lakes of my childhood in the Midwest, and even though I never got my feet wet, stepping out to walk along the river in Hungerford was cleansing.

* I feel like Bridget’s family home in Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy does a great job of bringing this exact type of British home to the screen.