28/08/14: Another literary lately feat. Lydia Davis #4

So things have been hectic lately. I've been juggling shifts for the last month or so to accommodate the couple of family holidays that I've documented on this blog & that's meant six day weeks & one day weekends. Most evenings I'm ready to drop come nine o'clock & certainly not ready to face the world come nine o'clock the next morning when I'm opening up shop. The temptation is, inevitably, to allow myself to sleepily sway to Belle & Sebastian's dulcet tones on the train on the way in ('ooooh, get me away from here, I'm dyin') & catch up on the latest episode of 'GBBO' before bed. In the interest of getting through some recreational reading of my own before my course books loom ahead of me, however, I've been trying to shake off these bad habits. Nobody's perfect. We all lapse into week-old newspaper review supplements that gather dust at the bottom of our tote bags &, ahem, scroll through our bulging backlog of blog posts but I've been trying to maintain momentum from the luxuriously productive time I had for books on my holiday - from the seaside pier to the train platform (should've gone with that blog post title, it's catchy, right?)

As I dropped into my last post about my dreamy week in Cornwall lately, I managed to read Javier Marias' 'The Infatuations' & 'Beautiful Ruins' by Jess Walters during my week away. Neither were exactly what I had expected. I will readily admit both that I am a complete strange to crime fiction & that I had Jess Walters' novel down as the lightest of my book choices. While I had subconsciously categorised 'The Infatuations' down as an exercise in European noir springing from a passionate love affair, I was surprised by its singular narration & its cerebral wondering on the nature of truth & of the relationship between the living & the dead. One chapter through 'Beautiful Ruins' I also realised that the techni-coloured cover had sold it short in terms of its intelligence, wit & minutely drawn scenes of a dilapidated hotel in 1960s Sicily & its similarly, spiritually dilapidated owner that is confronted with a vision of Hollywood glamour to which he clings for most of his adult life. The explorations of the nature of hope, ambition & love through the prism of a multitude of wild characters including a particularly hilarious Richard Burton himself, exceeded my expectations of this novel & have meant that it's already packed to pass onto my Mum when I head home this weekend.

Although it seems like a long time ago now (holidays always do, don't they?), I have only had the chance to start one other in my teetering pile of unread books thus far & it had to be the second volume of Knausgaard. Its spine has sat expectantly within view of my pillow for the best part of a couple of months & I knew that it had to be read before the end of August &, most importantly, the beginning of October. Knausgaard surely presents a dilemma for booksellers everywhere as they are repeatedly captivated by his prose without being able to tell anyone why, nonsensically thrusting the first volume of 'My Struggle' into people's hands & maniacally telling them to 'JUST READ IT!!!'. I am quite happy keeping him to myself & the joy that I find in almost every page, I'm only weary of admitting that I'm almost avoiding reading it all for fear of reaching the end.

Inevitably there's always more to look forward to. I recently visited the new Foyles flagship on my second visit & decided that it was a thoroughly brilliant place. I picked up a little pamphlet called 'Berlin Triptych', a couple of essays that paint a portrait of the city after the millennium, while resisting a number of other things. I was also very pleased to chance upon a copy of the endlessly-recommended-to-me 'The Glass Castle' by Jeanette Walls in a Cornish charity shop for £1. A review of the Anna Jones cookbook that I've been pining for & have finally caved into buying will also follow shortly once I've made more than the delectable honey roasted radishes. Mmm radishes.

My most prized possession for the mean time, however, is doubtless the copy of my heroine Lydia Davis' book that she signed for me following an event at the (best) London Review Bookshop last night. Precisely why I encourage people to sign up to their mailing list, I snapped up my ticket minutes after they went on sale & then promptly sold out & I've been looking forward to it ever since. Settled in my seat at 6:40, one arm pressed flush against the cold paint of the wall having run from Russell Square, rapidly warming glass of red balanced in one hand, Karl Ove in the other, I thought about what impression I expected her to make. Regardless, I was held captivated by both Lydia Davis & Adam Thirwell as they talked for an hour - the former shy, a little awkward, evidently intensely thoughtful & very funny. Lydia read a handful of her stories, many of them among my favourites, & I feel lucky that I am able to carry her voice & smile around with me whenever I read them now. 

I'd somehow never been to an event at the LRB before last night but the space was ideal & their guestlist is always enviable. I'm making up for lost time, you might say, having booked for another of their evenings in a week or two but more on that again soon.

What've you been reading recently?

Are you amongst one of Lydia Davis' most ardent fangirls too?

Speak soon - O.

20/08/14: Cornish adventures

I like to consider myself an adventurer. I often find myself prone to bouts of wanderlust, dreaming of visiting other cities & learning more of foreign languages, cultures & (likely most of all) foods. I am also, however, something of a homebody, by my own admission, & it just so happens that Cornwall met me in the middle of the two with lots of sea air & long, coastal walks, plenty of cups of tea & nights in watching episodes of 'Fawlty Towers' on, err, VHS if you would believe those still exist, which I can confirm they do. 

-The view over to Polruan from Fowey-

Sofia & I got the train down to Par on the Friday which, aside from missing our intended departure time & having to make doe eyes at the ticket office, was a pleasure. I wish I'd lived during the golden age of rail travel when it was a wonder but I try not to stray my eyes too far from the window for the glorious journey alongside the sea, stopping at previously unknown stations, their signs coming into view once I'd gotten my head out of my book. Sofia & I ate bread rolls & fruit by way of the packed lunch that we'd packed for the journey & the time flew by, the two of us brushing the crumbs off of our laps as we readied our suitcases to get off of the train & onto the bus to Fowey. With the rest of our family (namely the usual crowd: dad, stepmum, little brother) arriving that evening, we had our inaugural meal, catching last orders at the local pub, me enjoying a surprisingly flavoursome veggie chilli made with Quorn(!) & started making plans for the week.

-On one of my evening walks-

What followed was seven days of adventuring: walking the weaving coastal path from Fowey to Menabilly & back using the lighthouse as our guide, clambering along the Hall Walk around the bay from Fowey to Polruan, drinking many pints of local Cornish Rattler in the pubs en route, hiring a boat for the afternoon to speed up & down the river estuary, sitting for many hours at a time with the paper on our balcony getting sunburnt knees, cycling the camel trail from Wadebridge up to Padstow for Rick Stein's lunch & a snoop around the town, making our way to St. Michael's Mount to see the castle, sitting for many hours on the edge of cliffs with my book & to watch the rising tides & eating plenty of cones of salted almond ice cream. 

-Alas, not my impressive handiwork on Readymoney Beach-

I've written about in previous posts just how intense family holidays can be but we were very lucky with the weather - radiant sunshine most days with the occasional summer shower - which meant that we weren't resigned to a week of sitting inside playing board games & arguing. Since I've not lived with aforementioned family members for many years, there was also a good amount of domesticity that we all enjoyed - the ritualistic making of tea, settling down to ancient BBC comedy series & my vain attempt to convert my Dad to vegetarianism by making my red lentil & spinach dhal, ho hum. I've also found myself to be belatedly besotted with the seaside. Although I grew up in Sussex, not too far from Brighton's coast, it was only the occasional trip to Devon or Norfolk that my bucket & spade really got an airing but the few trips I've made to Fowey in the last few years have seen it really capturing my heart. I spent a couple of evenings wrapped up in my denim jacket in the sea breeze, enjoying being alone with my own thoughts & watching the waves as they washed to shore.

-A toast to Readymoney Cove, Cornish honeycomb ice cream & freckles forever-

The food was particularly good this time around, not only in terms of that ol' salted almond ice cream (best ever) but also in the form of the new potatoes, peppers & halloumi I had in a tomato sauce at Bill's in Menabilly, the risotto verde at The Bistro in Fowey, the scrambled eggs on granary toast at Brown Sugar also in Fowey &, of course, the deep-fried halloumi & chips I had at Rick Stein's. Gosh. I managed to read roughly one & a half books while I was away - Javier Marias' 'The Infatuations' which I enjoyed immensely, being beautifully written in parts & with a captivating plot despite perhaps being a little too long, & Jess Walter's 'Beautiful Ruins' that is a lot more intelligent than I had previously given it credit for & which paints a vivid picture of 1960s Italy. There was even the chance for some covert charity shopping resulting in a very useful £1.50 paisley scarf, a copy of Jeanette Walls' 'The Glass Castle' for a pound &, although bought new, the very first of my Falcon collection, a beautiful enamel teapot that has already had it's inaugural brew. So just about all of my favourite things in a week, then - no wonder I'm particularly resentful of my first six day week back at work...!

Still there's plenty to look forward to with rather a lot more leaving the house than I'm used to the next few weeks, including both book events & gigs alike. Oh & I'm also hoping to get out on my bike more, I'm aching after yesterday's commute but I figure that's because I only do it once a fortnight, oops.

Have you been adventuring lately? 

Speak soon - O.

13/08/14: Birthday boy

Blogs are brilliant places to write about things that you do often & that is, well, often what I do write about - dinner recipes, trips to Columbia Road, books I'm reading, day trips to art galleries - but it's also worth mentioning things that aren't such frequent occurrences. This post contains one such occurrence, namely my being found on Kingsland Road at almost two o'clock in the morning or, more specifically, dancing around the lampposts on Ridley Road. At the risk of sounding as if I'm twenty-two going on one-hundred-and-two, my boyfriend & I have been wildchilds in our time but whereas Andrew only now lacks the stamina, I have also been known to lack the required enthusiasm. 

This Saturday night was different as it was Andrew's birthday-eve &, as befits the sense of occasion, we decided to make the effort, me pulling on some skinny jeans & my Swedish Hasbeens, first heading up Tottenham Road. Once we had finished reeling from the £18 (£18!) a round price tag, the two of us settled into a plush leather sofa in our woefully-undervalued Hunter S. up towards Islington that we've always loved for its 1920s taxidermy-clad, gloomily-lit, speak-easy impression that has lulled us in on many a winter's evening. A couple of drinks here proved perfect & we were soon planning on where we were headed next. Always inevitably having to factor in a trip to Efe's pool hall, it was there that we ambled up to to count down the minutes to midnight but the music was lame so we left soon thereafter & decided on 'Market Bar' on an otherwise desolate Ridley Road. 'Market Bar' is a venue that Andrew had always wanted to take me to but the queue never seemed worthwhile - how wrong I could have been! Five pound cocktails (tequila & watermelon was my favourite but I can also recommend the pina coladas & mojitos, the gin & grapefruit not so much to my tastes but heh) & a heaving dancefloor screaming along to Nelly's 'Hot in Here'. It was so much fun & we stayed until well after last orders. The rest is slightly fuzzier around the edges but we wound up in 'Birthdays' for the last drink of the night before grudgingly swaying our way through the streets & home.

The next day, Andrew's birthday proper, we had planned meticulously - a big vegetarian fry up for the two of us before an afternoon spent rummaging through the stalls of Battersea Boot Sale. These plans, however, were quickly abandoned in favour of sleeping until eleven & finally dragging ourselves out of bed, propping sunglasses over our noses & walking as far as the corner of our street for some much-needed coffee from our favourite Betty's. Once present opening was under & out of the way, we didn't seem up to anything beyond a walk northwards towards Stoke Newington & lying face up in Clissold Park. This is exactly what we did. Bundling up blankets to take up there & buying our trustworthy hangover cure - blue packet Doritos that is, praise be - en route, the two of us couldn't imagine better satisfaction than feeling that sunshine on our faces & awaiting the ominous roar of hunger that follows that sickness for so long. Luckily we had planned ahead for such an eventuality & ambled back towards home & Broadway Market for 'Franco Manca' pizzas that are yet to be bettered.

The next day was one of similar recuperation or at least for Andrew as I sleepily pulled on slippers at ten o'clock to get things going in the kitchen for our belated birthday brunch. For the most part originating from my desire to try Ava of Guac & Roll's homemade vegan baked beans, the oven was warming & pans were soon on every ring as I set about making roasted tomatoes, hashbrowns (with thanks to Mr. Sainsbury, ahem) & garlic buttered chestnut mushrooms to go alongside it all. The baked beans were the absolute best & will be made again - in fact, they're so easy I would make them on a weekday & not regret it. We were lucky to have another sweltering day on that Monday in which to wander down to Shoreditch & back again with very good memories of the day that went before.

I'll be back again soon with a Cornwall update but first we've got some bicycles booked & some rain in which to cycle, here's hoping that 'fish' & chips at the end of it all is ample incentive!

Speak soon - O.

04/08/14: Rome, Sorrento & beyond

I've realised in the last week that family holidays are a lot like the Christmas to me. The anticipatory excitement in the weeks beforehand, the stress of getting packed & organised just before you're due to fly, the initial joy & warmth of seeing everyone & the eventual decline into throat-wringing by the end of it all. These comparisons aren't only in terms of relationships either as eating & drinking habits often lapse into uncharacteristically hedonistic indulgence justified by wanting to mark the sense of occasion. So too are the feelings that follow on return home akin to the New Year: regret at having to return to everyday life which seems more mundane than ever, sentimentally looking back at how great it was really & resolutions anew to renounce white bread & a bottle of wine with most meals. All of these things are what make these occasions what they are & we wouldn't change them for the world - that was certainly the case when I set off for a week in Italy a fortnight or so ago, two days in Rome followed by a handful in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast with my small sister in tow.

-Protestant Cemetery-

The two of us were excited to return to Rome as we had such a good time in the city when we visited last, as a family (plus my older brother & his now-wife!), two years ago as part of a trip that saw us wind up on the French Riviera in Nice. That particular occasion was packed full of all of the best sights - The Colosseum, the Spanish Steps, Keats' House, The Parthenon, St. Peter's Basilica, The Vatican, The Forum, almost all of the churches, The Trevi Fountain, to name a few - so we decided to clear our itinerary this time around & just explore the city in varying weathers of either blazing heat or muggy rain. We made our pilgrimages to the almighty Baths of Agrippa & the unassuming isle of calm of the Protestant Cemetery that both Keats & Shelley now call home but before we knew it, it was time to gather up our suitcases once more & hit the road towards Sorrento. 

-The two of us in one of Rome's many picturesque squares-

The Amalfi Coast is a part of the world that I had not yet been fortunate enough to visit so, after a long & stressful family drive as family drives often are, I was excited to see the swooping coastline that I was so familiar with from the latest series of 'The Trip'. Truth be known, our own trip was loosely based around that that Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon did over those six glorious episodes & we duly paid homage to the two comedy greats in our plans for the five days we had in the region. With renewed energy, our first day further south was spent, after another drive, at the excavation site of the ancient city of Pompeii - the destruction of which I studied for years in Latin (#coolkid #iwasreallygoodatitaswell) - which was astonishing both in terms of scale (it's huge!) & how much had been preserved by layers of ash that had coated the city. Sofia & I managed to find some peace amidst the inevitable hoards of tourists, ducking into immaculately tiled baths & retreating into the shade of towering pillars. After a lunch of spaghetti & olives just down from the site we resolved to scale Vesuvius, taking an ex-military bus with killer suspension as far up the volcano as we could before mounting the summit, me ever-practically dressed in, errr, Birkenstocks. The crater loomed ahead of us as we disappeared into cloud & walked the perimeter, looking down on the staggering view of the coast that laid below us. 

-Pompeii, it's mosaics & chipped toenails, sorry!-

The next morning was spent recuperating from a busy day in the heat, Sofia & I taking some time out by

ourselves to secure two seats on the decking that comprised the beach, jutting out from the cliff face on which our hotel hovered. I read (the very little time I had to do so during the week, sob!) my novel, Antal Szerb's 'Journey by Moonlight', a beautiful & captivating book that took in both Rome & the Protestant Cemetery in its pages, & then went for a dip in the surprisingly cold sea with Sofia who laughed uproariously as I tried to convince myself to duck my shoulders under. Lunch was a lighter affair of Salad Caprese before a stunning, weaving drive right along the mountain road, dodging madmen on Vespas & even madder men on bicycles through Amalfi itself to Ravello. Though we had come only to wander around & meet our dinner reservation, my Dad had also come to seek out Villa Cimbrone & its 'Terrace of Infinity' that offers famous views out to sea from its railings. Little did I know that it would be so beautiful & so romantic, bought by a Lord Grimthorpe in mourning for his departed wife, these grounds & gardens became the centre of much artistic activity during the 20th Century, including frequent visits from Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield & D. H. Lawrence. I only lamented that we had so little time to look around, pausing only briefly at the rose gardens but taking a deep breath at the vista from the balcony that is like nothing else on earth, I am sure.

-Sunset from the Terrace of Infinity-

While enamoured by all of the tin can, original Fiat 500s that were parked on every precarious corner, our last full day on the coast was spent on a different mode of transport but not one that made me feel any less sick, hooray. It was the Sorrento-Capri ferry that we hopped on at eleven o'clock on that Wednesday but thankfully the journey was quick & it wasn't long before we were on a significantly calmer vessel making our way to lunch at Da Luigi, wind in my hair threatening to blow my polka dot dress up around my ears...! 

I must admit that, despite the pleasure of the indulgence, I found vegetarian eating a little joyless during my time in Italy, the natives having not moved on from replacing meat with cheese. I love cheese but I felt in need of lentils, big time. This lunch was different. Maybe it was the sunny skies just starting to give way to faint rain, a glass of good wine, feeling at peace surrounded by the cliffs & the waves, but I had pasta with the lightest, creamiest courgette sauce that was amongst the most delectable of dishes that I've ever enjoyed. Unfortunately I wasn't given due warning of our steep upward climb into the town not to order a slice of traditional Caprisian chocolate almond cake so it was with numerous stopping & hunching over that we clambered up into the town & back down to the marina again in time for lemonade & the ferry back over to Sorrento.

Even looking back on these photographs now it all seems something of a dream, only potentially improved by having Andrew with me to share it all with, soppy date as I am, sigh. I was still very sad to leave via Rome airport the next day, a phone full of New Yorker fiction podcasts to guide me home at gone midnight.
As luck would have it, I only had to endure four days at work this week ahead of going again tomorrow for another seven days, this time in the potentially-not-so-sunny seaside town of Fowey in Cornwall. I'm going to have all the scones! Oh & take my laptop with me so I can fill you in on my adventures.

Have you been holidaying lately too?
Speak soon - O.

-The marina in Capri-