LAST WEEK I was unable to send out the regular newsletter dispatch due to unforeseen circumstances. Instead, I sent a Sunday edition while remaining in a scenario not unlike a real-life version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Okay, I'm may be exaggerating a bit.
WHILE routine often carries a negative connotation, the film Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, 2023) invites viewers to find beauty in the mundane. It follows Hirayama, a Tokyo-based toilet cleaner who finds contentment in life's simple pleasures and the daily rituals that lend his days structure and tranquility.
LAST WEEK, during cardio, was watching a film in which two of the main characters were a British couple living somewhere in Italy. Italy, of course, was very much a main character itself, with its terracotta orange and olive green and blindingly sunny skies. It looked idyllic.
If you listen to the experts, much of the place I’m from is not a place at all. Suburban Michigan is full of winding roads dotted with identical houses, strip malls stuffed with chain restaurants and big-box stores, and thoroughfares designed for cars, with pedestrian walkways as an afterthought.
P IS IN THE middle of reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray and I've just finished All Made Up by Rae Nudson as well as Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (yes, I know, it's crazy that this is my first time ever reading that classic), and am now just starting The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
ON FRIDAY P brought home a box of fortune cookies he found at the supermarket in celebration of the Lunar New Year. Neither of us is entirely certain of all the traditions associated with this celebration, but according to the Chinese zodiac, this is his year.
OUR FIRST Christmas film this year wasn't actually one of our usual old favourites (Christmas Vacation for P, The Holiday for me⏤although we've seen them both so much now that we mainly put them on as background ambience), but The Holdovers...
I DON'T KNOW what it is about Kings Cross that makes us want to join long queues for food, but this weekend, we did it again. This time, it was for dim sum and you don't even want to know how long we waited. We were tempted to leave a few times, but the promise of the best dim sum in London was too much, so we stayed.
ON FRIDAY we finally made it to Hampstead to visit The Holly Bush, perhaps one of the most photographed pubs it London. It's on a really lovely quiet street and looks just as charming when you first happen upon it as we had hoped.
THERE IS a Welsh word, hiraeth, that is used to describe a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past. I've been studying words in other languages recently, marvelling at how different languages have so many descriptive ways to denote very specific feelings or situations.
ON SATURDAY we cycled to Richmond Hill for a picnic. We were hoping to see the turning leaves, but it must still be too early here yet. P picked up a bottle of our favourite cava, an absolutely delicious baguette and some extraordinary brie and we laid down our plaid wool blanket in the grassy area overlooking the Thames...
RECENTLY came across an old story in GQ about the last true hermit, who had zero communication with the outside world (with two very brief exceptions between 1986 and 2013) for 27 years.
ON SUNDAY WE went on a epic 50 km bicycle ride past Wimbledon and Clapham Common (where we stopped for a bit to lounge in the sun and nibble on the mini ice cream bars and pan au chocolat we picked up along the way) before heading into the city centre...
THIS WEEKEND, P recreated the sandwich we used to get in Valencia, complete with the salsa verde. It was marvellous. He also made Fideuà on Sunday, so we had a rather Spanish weekend. It's actually the last long weekend of the summer here and despite two days of overcast skies and rain, it did clear up today and was perfect.
ALTHOUGH I am never awake for them, I prefer sunrises to sunsets. Sunsets are an ending, and I love beginnings. Sunsets mean the end of another day, which means time away from all the things I love to do, at least until the next morning. I guess it’s a FOMO of sorts, a constant fear of missing out when my eyes are closed.
