OUR FACES are golden on noses and cheekbones, our shoulders bronzed from the past week of hot summery weather. Just as we promised, we spent every single day outdoors, working on camp chairs in new exotic locations throughout the week and ending with dinners on the back terrace on the weekend. Once, we even had a barbecue along the river, our first and possibly only of the summer?
TWO WEEKS AGO, when we were in Edinburgh meeting up with P's brother, I got terrible blisters on my feet wearing the new espadrilles I'd ordered a few days earlier. I was really surprised (and a little confused) because I've had many pairs of espadrilles before and none of them ever gave me any trouble. I thought that maybe I should have broken them in more before the trip, but then I read recently about how many people have been having similar foot trouble getting back into regular shoes again after three years of wearing slippers, trainers, and other comfortable footwear during lockdown ...
YESTERDAY a huge delivery box arrived, filled with protein powder, organic raw cacao nibs, almond butter and other whole/health food items. It was good to be back on a regular workout routine after last weekend's excursion to Edinburgh (inadvertently) during the heatwave. It's nearly the end of July already and doesn't the summer seem to be flying by?
THESE LINKS COME to you late, as the short trip we made to Edinburgh to visit family ended up spiralling into chaos due to the heat wave over these past three days. We left for the city on Sunday morning and were only supposed to stay one night, but the temperature rose on Monday and created mayhem⏤schools were closed, shops were shut, people stayed home from work, and trains, tubes, and subways were cancelled.
THE WEATHER has been amazing over the past few days, so the weekend was, of course, perfect. We spent most of it outside, eating gazpacho and watermelon, talking of our upcoming travels and plans and places we want to visit, such as Villa di Geggiano, an Italian restaurant in Chiswick. We also talked about books and films, and well, pretty much everything.
HEARD ON A podcast that Napoleon hired someone to read books to him while doing mundane tasks like brushing his teeth. P listens to podcasts while shaving and cooking, and I've begun listening to an economics podcast while putting on makeup. I still read only books and my Kindle though⏤no audio books for me.
OUR COUNTRYSIDE village has these charming events and one of them, which happens every year, is a Midsummer's Evening and this year, it was held last Thursday, one day after the Summer Solstice. There were food trucks and folk dancers and face-painting. All the shops were opened late and there was live music (a cover band act).
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE sipping cava in the sun kind of weekends, hazy and warm and filled with the quiet languidness and melancholy that comes with the knowledge that these days must be savoured before they fade away. I love summertime so much that I am already sad about the thought of it ending before it even begins.
AFTER TRYING TWO sets of meals from a recipe box company over the past two weeks, this weekend we tried a new company that makes healthy meal kits and so far, the two meals we made were delicious! And, even more amazingly, P made the first and I made the second⏤and guess what? It actually turned out. Crazy right? In other news, finally had a chance to watch the 2014 film, The Theory of Everything ...
THIS EXTRA LONG Bank Holiday weekend felt more like five days instead of four, as we stopped working on Wednesday and took the next few days off. There were sunny afternoons and a surprise visit from someone far away; faded vermilion-coloured roses in pink glass vases and lingering drinks on pub garden terraces; freshly baked crusty loaves of sourdough bread for breakfast and really good coffee ...
HAPPY MONDAY! It's the start of a three-day workweek before a four-day weekend and despite the gloomy skies and incessant rain, there seems to be a bounce in everyone's steps today. Last week had told you that we were repainting the living room and we finished on Thursday and it looks gorgeous! Can't believe I managed to pick such a beautiful colour without ordering any swatches or sample pots ...
WE'RE TRYING out one of those food services that deliver a huge box of fresh ingredients to your home⏤enough to make five different meals from scratch, all packaged in separate numbered paper bags with recipe cards for each. It arrived on Saturday and the first meal we (actually just P) made was Cauliflower Mac and Cheese with Blue Cheese Crumb and Sriracha Drizzle. It was actually really good.
GIVE ME coffee to change the things that I can and wine to accept the things that I can not, read a quote on a portable sign that I saw on someone's account this weekend. It's sunny and just after 6:00pm on what began as a very dark and rainy Monday, but has since turned into a beautiful mid-May day ...
HAD FORGOTTEN to mention that a couple of weeks ago, we saw the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was a bit crazy, a little hard to follow at times, manic and funny and perhaps worth it if only for the wildly romantic line, "...I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you."
