Food festivals are the BEST festivals

OMGYOUGUYS. Today was the last day with my manuscript and sending it off has to feel like your kid going to school for the first time: some sadness, some relief, a bit of wondering what you'll do during your day without it. I should've taken a photo of the pages wearing a '1st Day' sticker for posterity and included the milestone in my Christmas newsletter.*

Another first is happening today! I am having my first pressed lamb. Growing up in a cow- and pig-heavy state (country?), lamb wasn't something I had much of growing up. Or really ever until I moved to this fancy green isle. This particular treasure was a gift from a food festival on Sunday, when I had the good fortune to be backstage at a chef demonstration with One Of My Favourite People In The History Of People (let's use the acronym OOMFPITHOP to make it easier) and the show had leftovers. Pressed lamb, green beans and double goat's cream, to be specific, and they ALL made their way into my goodie bag. (I ALSO HAD A GOODIE BAG. GOODIE BAGS I THINK ARE MY FAVOURITE THING EVER.) This is going to be a far nicer meal than we usually get on a Wednesday night, and I am EXCITED. Like THIS excited:

Me on Sunday, high on free samples and tea with tonic and OOMFPITHOP

Alright, these beans aren't going to trim themselves so I'd better get cracking. Have a wonderful Wednesday night, and see you tomorrow!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss




*This does not exist but if I ever did, it would be a full-colour 'zine that would land roughly mid-February and none of us would survive it.

I'm the worst vegan

OMGYOUGUYS. You want to see some meat porn? (#phrasing) Last Thursday took Wolf and I and the Welshman and His Lady O' the Cheekbones to Smokestak to try London's hottest new bbq joint and YOUGUYS. IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT. Apparently the head chef, some genius named David Carter, hails from Roka and studied in the States and all that experience brought us delicious, splooshy meatopia. LOOK. Just LOOK at these pork ribs:

I'll give you a minute to go change your pants.

Done? Excellent. Shouldn'ta bothered, we're going to do it again. Below, on the left: smoked girolles on beef dripping toast, crispy ox cheek, and cured pig jowl. On the right, pigtails. I was initially skeptical when Wolf ordered them but I was WRONG. WRONG, I TELL YOU. You know what they taste like? PORK CANDY. You just pick it up daintily between two fingers and nibble the meat round that bone like it's a miniature corn on the cob and then ORDER TEN MORE CUZ YOU'RE NOT SHARING. There is a reason this place is described as 'an opera about barbecue', and those reasons are below:

Pretty sure they fried the pig jowl toast. Pretty sure there's crack in the ox cheek bites. Pretty sure I blacked out at this point. 

Now let's talk about BBQ sides for a second. BBQ sides are not generally a thing that interest me. I mean, there's MEAT on the table. Put that vegetable away! And I especially don't care for potato products (as my family can well attest). They're just so . . . STARCHY. Get behind me, tuber! But the table went for the jacket potato with sour cream and I sighed mightily in resignation while pretending to be happy for them, and then THIS HAPPENED:

Pictured: Belle-of-the-Ball Brisket wondering how it got overshadowed. And it was TERRIFIC brisket. TERRIFIC. But the dish that made everyone coo and groan and lean back? THAT POTATO, DEVIL OF THE NIGHT. 

Also there was a sticky toffee pudding with burnt caramel, which for the sake of my younger readers, I won't talk about here. 

Then we took our gargantuan, satiated selves over to the Village Underground to see The Hackney Colliery Band and jump around to some big brass. And by 'jump' I mean 'heavy swaying, gentle wiggle'. Movement was not our strong suit. 

It was a great night. 

I'm off today for Lady Saturday Fun Day! I'm meeting the girls at Liberty to see the costumes and then we're going to have tea-tails at a posh bookshop. Then tonight Wolf and I have a leaving do for two lovely Irish friends who are heading back to Galway-town, much to the loss of London. (Sidebar: I wish mega boat travel was still a thing, because one day I'd like to stand on a dock waving a hanky at someone and weeping.) 

I hope your day is full of sweet, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

On Wednesdays, wonder, and walnuts

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen, Anthem

YOUGUYS. It's Wednesday here and I'm in my favourite spot on the rug in front of the fire and I've caught up on emails and prepped dinner and I get a quiet night in before the rest of the week kicks off with a Guild dinner and a brewery birthday party and then the weekend, crazy on its own for existing. We're planning on spending Sunday afternoon wandering through Victoria Park's Winterville, so join us if you're around and want to eat pies and spin on rides until you get sick. I'm also getting us tickets to the Circus just to capture the full terrifying experience of so much wonder.

I'm making a Brain Food meal tonight since Wolf has his last MBA exam tomorrow and I want to make sure he goes in at his mental peak rather than in the sluggish state I usually equip him with thanks to a steady diet of pasta and cream. We're having salmon with blueberries and avocado and walnuts and feta and lots of greens and according to the internets this will make him a regular Einstein. For breakfast he's getting a red pepper scramble with a side of cottage cheese, blueberries and whole grain toast. All this is guaranteed to help him ace his test. Superfoods, amirite?

I leave you now with this photo of our neighborhood bus stop, because it shows a lot of what our neighbourhood is like and also it's just pretty:

Do you think she'll be my friend?

Okay, I'm off to enjoy my last hour of solitude before dinner. Wish Wolf luck tomorrow!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

On a desert road trip, the Salinas Grandes, and 'adventure travel'

OMGYOUGUYS. It's time for a travel tale. Do youguys remember last winter, when we went to Argentina to visit delightful friends (the ones who sent me that gorgeous diary yesterday) and cruised the countryside for a while? SURELY YOU MUST. Anyway, you may or may not also remember that there was a bit of a gap in content between Cafayate and our return to Buenos Aires. In that time we cruised Salta and Iguazu Falls and things got Super Real. Super Awesome, to be sure, but Real, nonetheless. This was no urban, hipster portion of our holiday, where we ate fancy food and watched dancers do the tango, or cruised vineyards and poolsides and ate our weight in empanadas. No, Salta was none of these things. It was cowboy country, close to the borders of Bolivia and Chile, a gorgeously wild, rocky countryside, full of llamas and gauchos and wool and stew and folk music and grit.

I don't know if you know this, but Wolf and I aren't super gritty.

Our day out of Salta began with a drive north to Purmamarca to see the Cierro de Siete Colores (Hill of Seven Colours). We intended from that point on to continue our drive north to Humahuaca to see More Colourful Hills and Rocks before turning around and trekking back south. It would be a long day on the road - about three hours each way - but THOSE VIEWS, right! That LANDSCAPE! IT MUST BE DONE IT IS WHY WE ARE IN SALTA.

It all started according to plan: we made it to Purmamarca by 10:30 in the morning - after a drive through rolling hills covered in fog, very Northern-California - and got to see this:

I'm pretty sure this is where unicorns are born.

Purmamarca was the sweetest little village nestled in the crook of a rainbow: it had a charming market square filled with dusty pottery and llama wool blankets and a whopping total of about five little shops packed with mate gourds, bombillas, and wooden carvings of animals. It was EXACTLY what you wanted it to be.

Taste the rainbow.

Our plan from this point was to make it to Humahuaca by lunch, take some more photos of pretty rocks, maybe take a walk, and then head back to Salta for dinnertime.

It was in the tiny Purmamarca tourism office - if you can call a single room containing nothing but a giant yellowed wall map a tourism office - that our path changed. 'You MUST go to Salinas Grandes,' the tourism-girl/map monitor assured us. 'It is MUCH nicer than Humahuaca. Also closer. Drive is very nice.' We consulted Wall Map, squinted at her one faded brochure from 1994 that showed giant salt plains and a bunch of fluorescent nerds jumping around, looked at Wall Map again, and saw that it was indeed a closer dot. And - unlike Humahuaca - we could loop back to Salta via a local highway so we wouldn't be backtracking and taking the same road up and down the country. All new territory! And halfway through this loop was a town that - going by the size of its dot - was pretty good-size, and the brochure said that tourism buses bound for the Salinas Grandes used this town as its halfway point for a break, and that it also had a train station because it was on the track of the Train to the Clouds or Heavens or whatever. So it must contain at least a charming square of some sort and possibly an empanada or two! Who needs Humahuaca and its dozens of cafes? We're sold. Caution to the wind - me feeling very proud that for once I wasn't following a carefully-planned itinerary, I am so spontaneous and exciting - we hit the road.

And the girl didn't lie: the approach to the Salt Plains was BEAUTIFUL. Mountains and switchbacks and views in every direction:

'Look at those rock formations!' we exclaimed, convinced these were at LEAST as nice as those of Humahuaca, if not BETTER.

'Have you ever SEEN such beauty??' we thrill. 

'Oh yeah. We made the right choice.'

It took us about an hour to get to the Salt Plains, and we are psyched. We got to drive through SO MUCH PRETTINESS and now we're going to see SALT PLAINS. We're thirsty, and starting to feel peckish - it's noon, after all, time for first lunch - so we decide we will pop in to the Salt Plains Visitor Centre and buy a bottle of water and an overpriced cookie or something to tide us over until we get to that Halfway Town.

Except we get there, and there is only this:

Salt Plains, as advertised.

That's okay! How naive of us to assume that all national parks would have visitor centres! This isn't the UK or America, after all. We've travelled the world, we should've known better! And we aren't sissies, we can wait until Halfway Town to eat or drink. We jump around like nerds because the brochure seemed to indicate that was the number one activity here, and then we continue on our Fun Times Road Trip.

We took the car back to a painted arrow we remembered seeing a few minutes before: 101km to San Antonio de los Cobres *that way*. Excellent! In about two hours we'll have a break and a bite. Sure, we hadn't eaten since 7 that morning and now we were looking at two in the afternoon, but a little hunger builds character. WE ARE NOT SISSIES. Onwards!

Things are still looking good as we head back to the arrow. And then: Where is the road?

Is it that dirt track?

SPOILER ALERT: IT IS THAT DIRT TRACK.

We're momentarily alarmed before realising that it must only be dirt for a short time before becoming a normal road again, because Wall Map showed this road as a thick yellow line like all the other roads we had been on before and none of THEM were made out of sand. Let's not worry too much, we must get on with things, lunch awaits and it's this or return to Purmamarca.

We take the turn.

This is what it looks like when donkeys are laughing their *sses off.

We ignored the warning, the hilarity, in his eyes.

We start driving. And driving. This is all we see for the first half hour: 

Eff you, Salt Plain horizon.

And this is all we see for the NEXT THREE HOURS:

At this point, the road is so rough that Alan's struggling to keep our tiny tin-can rental car in our 'lane' (insert delirious laughter here. There are no lanes. There are no other cars). The constantly shifting sand, the buffeting wind, the rocks - everything conspires to push our vehicle into the path of nature. His knuckles are white on the wheel and every time we hear a pebble ping against the side of the car - which is every two seconds - we flinch and regret not taking out the insurance policy, because surely by the end of this, our car will be as pocked as the surface of the moon. We can't roll down the windows, because within seconds the wind pushes so much dirt into the car we are covered head-to-toe in a fine red dust.

Eventually, having driven for over two hours without seeing a single other vehicle, Alan relaxes his grip and gives up and drives down the middle of the road, where the car appears to be (more) content. Any approaching vehicle we'd see coming days in advance. So, you know, bright side?

THERE IS NO BRIGHT SIDE HERE. THIS IS DEATH.

This is where they bury the bodies of all the tourists who take this road.

And then - finally, finally, oh thank God we've made it - San Antonio de los Cobres! We made it! Civilisation! We made it! There will be water! Food! Gas! WATER WATER OMG WATER WE ARE DYING OF THIRST AND HUNGER WATER. It's now 3:30 in the afternoon, we are low on gas, and it's been over 8 hours since the last time we had anything to eat or drink. Our hanger has led us to bottomless depths of silence and all we can think of is putting ANYthing in our face, ANYthing AT ALL, and not running out of gas because we still have A BILLION MORE KILOMETERS to get to Salta. This was HALFWAY, YOUGUYS. HALFWAY THROUGH THE JOURNEY. But it's a town! Salvation is upon us.

OH. EFFING. NO.

THIS IS THE ENTIRE TOWN YOUGUYS.

Just let that sink in a minute.

Maybe that's the convenience store?

It is at this point we begin to despair. This was our goal, it's what kept us going through over three hours of driving through a deserted wasteland. We panic in a silent way, because we are too worn down to panic in our usual scream-to-the-gods way, my preferred method of supplication. Our focus narrows immediately. GAS. WE MUST GET GAS. Forget dreams of food and water, forget white-washed churches and leafy town squares, IF WE DON'T GET GAS WE ARE STRANDED HERE. And we are pretty sure the only place to sleep is that graveyard we passed an hour before. 

We drive down the road. We find a dirt track that leads to another gravel road. We drive down that road. There is still nothing. We internally panic some more as the car's tank trickles down. We stop and ask two men walking down the road who are so covered in that pervasive white dirt you can't see the brown skin beneath and their insides must be white and cracked as well, and when we asked them for directions, their Spanish was not my Spanish and we can only understand their gestures and confusion. 

We finally find it: a tank. A man. A hose. GAS. We are so incredibly thankful we don't care that there's no shop attached, still no sustenance. We pass a house with a table in front and there's evidence of a parrilla that smells torturously of roasted meat, but this semblance of a place that sells food is already shut, they shut at three. Our Spanish is not your Spanish, so we cannot feed you, we are shut, you see our gestures? 

We get back on the road. We're slightly less terrified than before - at least now we have a full tank so we can die farther down the road - but now we are hell-bent on getting back to Salta. 

The road is still rough, but it's smoother, it's cleaner, we are moving faster, scenery is rising again: 

What is beauty in the face of the end of times? 

IT IS NOTHING. A WEARY SOUL KNOWS NO BEAUTY.

And then youguys, it happened. THE ROAD BECAME PAVED.

THE ROAD BECAME PAVED! You would not believe our shrieks of joy, the way we bounced in our seats and attempted the radio again and then gave up and sang our own songs. It didn't matter that we still had two hours of driving ahead of us, that we are now going on ten hours with no food or water. IT WAS PAVED, YOUGUYS.

You wouldn't believe how quickly two hours can pass when you can drive at a million miles per hour without swerving off a dirt path. As soon as we got back to Salta, we squealed to a halt in front of the first street food vendor we saw, not caring what he was selling, how authentic or local or charming it was, whether it had been reviewed by Tripadvisor or Yelp or Travel & Leisure, and we ate the best cheeseburgers of our lives and drank cokes so fast we nearly choked. Propped up on his stools, shovelling it all in, crusty and wild-eyed, the guy must've thought that we were absolutely insane.

We were. INSANE FOR THIS BURGER. I'm pretty sure my hand was trembling in this photo.

Eventually we made it back to our tiny hotel and showered and went out to Real Dinner - because OBVIOUSLY I still had a plan and a list of places we had to eat and no Burger Starter was going to stop that - before we at long last stumbled back to our room. We slept for ten straight hours that night, as heavily as the dead buried in the middle of the God-forsaken Argentinian desert.

The next day: Iguazu Falls. AKA 'Water.' It had better be good.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

And all I want is pizza

OMGYOUGUYS. I'm officially playing cat-and-mouse with our mouse and I've got the handicap: he's already got dibs on being the mouse which means I have to play the cat, and I am nowhere near fast enough. He has outsmarted me about twenty times so far, and all I've done so far is make him fatter. This would work if my strategy was to slow him down to the point of a waddle so I could just pick him up and throw him out the back door, but I don't foresee that happening. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure he's building himself a little throne and crowning himself king of the kitchen.

I'll bet he's friends with yesterday's fox.

Because I have to leave for a birthday party approximately ten minutes ago and I'm a big fan of cheating, here are some photos. It was either this or letting my friends do a live blog at the party, and I think we can all agree that would be a bad* idea.

So introducing...SWITZERLAND!

At least I think it is. This was soooo a year ago and we know how my dementia is going.

Glacial lake. Probably. Pond? I do recall an insanely long hike to get here, at which point it was so windy I nearly froze to death in the length of time it took to snap this. But look at that peak in the distance!

This was the mountain-top village we stayed in. 

Obscene, right?

So Switzerland has that going for it. There are a million more where these came from but the story I really want to tell is how we nearly died** on an Argentinian road trip, so that is coming soon.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

*Or a very, very good idea. Half of them are professional writers so it probably would've been the best post of the month.
**Okay, slight exaggeration. But SERIOUSLY.

Groceries and work and stuff?

OMGYOUGUYS. I have so much content today it's going to put yesterday to shame.

Wait, no, opposite of that. Unless you want to hear about my laundry and emails? Let me know.

You know what I love? Deliveries. Like, any delivery. Amazon, firewood, groceries, doesn't matter. PACKAGE FOR ME? I exclaim when I open the door to whoever is standing there. SWOON! Today it was groceries, which may be my favourite. They aren't tinged with the guilt of consumerism or the weight of my carbon footprint, and they're all consumable. Isn't that LOVELY?

So many delicious, delicious consumables. 

You know what else is fun*? Ocado's doing this thing now where you can buy really cheap organic produce for juicing or stewing because it's ugly. Like the stuff they can't sell normally - misshapen carrots, spotty apples, dented cucumbers, mutant squash - because people would complain. Even though it's perfectly good. You see that brown bag in the picture above? THAT IS FULL OF PERFECTLY USABLE ORGANIC VEG, that is gonna get cooked or whizzed or blended and then put in my belly.

I should be doing my expense report today but it is the absolute. worst. part of my job - and I have to talk to HUMANS, in real LIFE, if that tells you anything - so I'm vigorously putting it off. Until tomorrow. I'll totally do it tomorrow. After I blog. And maybe iron. See what Buzzfeed's doing.

Okay, time to make myself presentable. I've got a couple of meetings today - HUMANS - before I can come back home and climb into my hoodie and light the fire and cosy this joint up. OOH! I need more firewood delivered!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss

*I'm really flying fast and loose with this word

Weddings and birthdays and London, oh my!

OMGYOUGUYS. The mystery of yesterday's care package has been solved! Remember that wedding we went to on Saturday? With these gorgeous stunners?

IT WAS THEM THAT LEFT THE PACKAGE! Can you believe it?? They are spending their newlywed time delivering flowers and wine and wedding cake to the likes of us! Honestly. Makes me feel bad about getting them towels as a wedding gift.*

Here are some more photos of their day while we're here!

Stoke Newington Town Hall. It's also where Rob and Sharon got married on Catastrophe (I saw wedding episode the day after the above wedding, leading to much squealing and pointing to Alan, who was like, 'uh, right') so it's safe to say we are *pre-tty* posh.

 Isn't it all just too much? JUST TOO MUCH.

Guess where I'm off to now? HAWKSMOOR, WILDCATS. It's my friend Claire's birthday** and she's really good at shenanigans and when we go out and play there's something about her that makes you want to swirl amber liquids in glasses and cross your legs and let your heel dangle off your foot even if you aren't wearing heels and you throw back your head to laugh and a gorgeous throaty chuckle comes out even if usually you sound like a hyena, and what a LADY you are, swirl swirl! That's going out with Claire. So when she invites you to the Hawksmoor to eat steaks for her birthday, OH GIRL YOU MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

Next time I post will be from Scotland, so stay tuned for more adventures!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss


*Just kidding, you guys! We got you something way different! *Hides bag, rapidly gets lost in china section of John Lewis*
**It's also my sister's birthday! Alissa, my first slab of meat is for you. 

On butterflies, a holiday home, and a new place to live

'No one can be sad while they're using wrist and hand and eye and every muscle of their body. . . It was the hardest work I'd ever done, and, while it lasted, one could think of nothing else. I said not long before that work and weakness are comforters. But sweat is the kindest creature of the three - far better than philosophy, as a cure for ill thoughts.' - C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

OMGYOUGUYS. I'm currently working from the back garden listening to my favourite jazz playlist on Spotify and I KID YOU NOT as soon as Brubeck came on, a host of butterflies flew in and fluttered around like a bunch of maniacs. COINCIDENCE? I think not (she says as she begins to pen a paper titled 'The Brubeck Butterfly Correlation').

Sidebar: I'm currently expecting a work call that is leading me to answer the home phone that I always pretend not to hear and as a result, I've just been privy to a sales call about the value of insuring my home's boiler. EFF YOU TELYPHONE. Also, why do I keep asking this sales person more questions? She's calling back in a week now! Her name is Stephanie! My boiler is old!

Back to the business at hand: please indulge me for a moment while I attempt to explain - perhaps miserably - my blog-esque absence of the past three months. It has not been a NORMAL three months. There was a visit to America in May (San Francisco, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, to be specific). There was an attempt to finalise the French house in anticipation of The First Visitors Not Us. And all of this - busy enough as it made things - happened to time exactly with - spontaneity of spontaneities, how quickly things grow - a house move here in London. And in the midst of all this stress, Alan's wonderful, good-humoured and beloved father passed away and the earth temporarily halted on its axis and grief paid a visit.

It has been - needless to say - a very full time. But slowly things are starting to steady and boxes are getting unpacked one by one and things are becoming more or less okay, or at least normal-looking. Which to be honest, I will totally settle for at this point.

Onward and upward! Would you like to see the French place? I'm thrilled by how it's coming together, even though there's still a lot to be done.

This is our dining room. That stone wall is like a million years old. Also I'm excellent at history. Also we're getting more chairs so if you're OCD like I am, DON'T PANIC. 

What you can't see: behind that painting is a chimney! For the wood-burning stove that we don't have! But it will be done. Oh yes. It will be done.

Youguys, look at that 1930's art deco chandelier. I got it from a French flea market for like FORTY EUROS. That's like twenty five cents in Great British Pounds. Or LESS even.

I don't have any photos of the bedrooms yet because I feel like they aren't finished - that said, I don't know what they need in order to become so - but hopefully by the end of summer they'll be closer to where I want them and then I can show you the whole place.

Speaking of rooms unseen: we've officially moved house here in London. A beautiful opportunity came up for a place in (deepest, darkest) Hackney and - despite reservations about moving out of bustling, central, civilized Islington - we saw a back garden, we saw a bigger kitchen, we saw an extra bedroom, and we jumped on it. They say we're still in Zone 2 but guys, I swear we're out in the country. There are TREES on our street. Like big, pretty ones, not scrawny little well-ordered ones. The houses have bay WINDOWS. We've met the NEIGHbors. They've given us welcome-to-the-street chocolates and a CARD. A CARD YOUGUYS. Signed by their KIDS. WHAT EVEN IS THIS! I'm equal parts terrified and delighted.

Inside the house, however, is a small world of chaos: prints lean against walls waiting for hanging, a tv sits on the floor, our clothes have already overflowed the lone wardrobe, and shoes lie everywhere. But each week something else finds a spot and in this small way we're getting there. Home home home.

Not pictured: home.

I hope your summer of 2015 is going well, and all my heart to you.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

On stuffed mice, Southwold, and road trips in France

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. - Rilke 

OMGYOUGUYS. So much has happened these past few weeks:

1. I made the world's most terrifying taxidermy mouse. He is my mangy little treasure and clearly the stuff that nightmares are made of:

I love him so much.

Also, I'm supposed to cut the wires now that he's stiffened, but I can't bring myself to do it. I suspect they're the only thing keeping him upright. (He's so jazz.)

2. A weekend in France indicated that spring arrives there sooner than here. We CYCLED. In the SUN. And we didn't die or need a jacket or ANYthing:

If you follow the lane to where it winds around to the right, you'll come to our back garden!* 

3. We also spent a weekend in Southwold! I'd like to say it's because I can't get enough of coastal England, but really it was because I bought an armchair on eBay and didn't notice until it was too late that it was listed as 'collection only.' 

'But think about how much money I saved!' she justifies, as she reserves a room in a seafront b&b. 

Luckily, Southwold has everything an English seaside town should: 

A pier with a retro arcade in which all the machines have been handmade by the town inventor:

Beach huts:

Village confectionary that advertises via vintage bicycle:

Seafood sold out of harbour-front shack:

Again with vintage bicycle. It's like this town was designed by Instagram.

And Lighthouse:

So really, I don't know HOW one could say I messed up here. 

France update! We officially did the Mega Move: we hired a van here in the UK, packed it full of random furniture and miscellany, and drove it the ten hours down to Bergerac. And I think it is safe to say WE WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN. For one, our sat-nav apparently likes the scenic route, and the van barely fit through tiny village after tiny village. We suspected that nearby there was a highway - there had to have been! - but our garmin refused to guide us there, and our Michelin road map was unfortunately crammed somewhere in a box in the back of the van. Two, an old man in a truck totally took off the van's side mirror when he barreled past us (while we were pulled over, mind), before promptly disappearing into the wind like so many old men going renegade in the French countryside. All we could see was his wild, white, bush-like hair retreating into the distance, his own mirror clattering along. 

It also turns out life in France is a lot like camping. Like how you have to bathe with a garden hose because your builder has gutted your bathroom in the process of installing a new shower. You would think a hose-shower in the cold dawn of early spring would be romantic, except you're also doing it while standing barefoot on what feels like frozen concrete, overlooking the back lane that the neighbors also enjoy. The same neighbors who - after months of being nowhere to be seen - started to appear en masse over the course of the week. (I refuse to believe there is a connection. Also, they are WAY friendlier than stories would have you believe.) Luckily, I've been practicing Not Showering for years, so I handled seven days of filth like a pro.

Also, I think Alan tried to kill me in the act of gardening. There was a thorny little tree climbing up the side of the house (and more importantly, scratching heck out of the top of the rental van) and finally, in a fit of agitation, I decided it needed to come down. We had intended to trim this tree 'eventually, down the road' - but after two days of it attacking us every time we approached, I had enough. I grabbed the hedge-trimming shears, and with a strength known only to enraged hulks, WENT TO TOWN ON IT. It didn't stand a chance. Branches are flying everywhere. And as I was nearly done, Alan grabs the tree and gives it the final yank that will pull it from the wall. And DIRECTLY ONTO MY HEAD. MY HEAD YOU GUYS. A THORNY TREE ON MY HEAD. And as my face and bare arms are being scratched to pieces by this barren twiggy tree completely enveloping my person, I'm pretty sure Alan just stood there, possibly smoking a cigarette. He claimed later that he reacted immediately, but I think we can all agree I was encompassed for about an hour. By the time I emerged, it looked like I had been attacked by a pack of wild cats.

Thank God I could at least clean my scratches under a bone-chilling hose shower.

But it's coming together. Trials and tribulations aside, with each visit down, it starts to look less like a skip and more like a dusty, dirty, box-filled home. We haven't been able to unpack anything yet - our contractor has dust-clothes and plastic draped over every surface - but soon. Soon our stuff will be laid out to collect dust the good-old fashioned way.

I can't wait.

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

*I didn't say we cycled FAR. I'm still ME.