Fun fact: on 27th April, this blog turned 20 years old. It started on Blogger, which shockingly still exists, albeit presumably only because there’s still an active email thread bouncing around Google trying to figure out exactly which team owns it so that they can shut it down. April 2004 was only two months after Facebook launched (for Harvard students only), two years before Twitter and six years before Instagram. It was, in other words, before everything turned a bit rubbish, and my stubborn determination to keep this thing rolling forward has been a great insulator from social networks over the years. Even if it is just a very inefficient way of writing a diary. Onwards to the next 20 years!
Of course, in 2004 I was still in secondary school, and a few weeks back I got to nostalgically relive the secondary school experience by signing up for a project and then leaving all the work until the night before the deadline. This was part of a Sense About Science project to crowdsource ratings on the quality of government publications – which is about the coolest sentence I’ve ever written – and as a result I now have random nuggets of information in my head fighting to get out about both leasehold reform and Universal Credit’s Work Capacity Assessment. Fortunately neither of these topics came up when I had dinner with Andrew and Bonnie a few Fridays ago, but we did stay up so late discussing theological differences between Protestantism and Catholicism that I had to crash overnight in their spare room. (And yes, this is the kind of engaging content which has kept this blog going for so long. You’re welcome.)
Other highlights of April included being invited to Conor’s birthday party in Mayow Park – where I was delighted to discover that an updated version of Punch & Judy is still going strong – although this was also where I discovered that Randi and I have been pronouncing the name of Chandos pub totally wrong all of this time. (We still prefer our version, though, and are sticking to it.) I also finally got a chance to watch What We Left Behind, a really lovely retrospective on the making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the 1990s. I loved watching this with my dad growing up, and it was his joint favourite Star Trek (along with The Next Generation) so it was a little sad to hear that the cast and crew always felt a little unloved and unappreciated compared to their sister shows. We loved you!
The really big thing last month, however, was Catherine & AJ’s long-awaited visit to the UK. Randi and I were both very excited to see them and took the week off work, starting in Edinburgh and then migrating down to London midway through their stay.
Well, I say “took the week off work” – this was mostly true, but Randi did force them to canvass with us in Bonnyrigg on Sunday afternoon before a very lovely Midlothian dinner with Kirsty and Roger in the evening. Through this process I discovered that having an adorable two-year old with you on the doorstep is a great way of melting the ice.
Other holiday meals in Scotland included the classic Dishoom dinner (where I bullied everyone into trying the Liberty Punch with me) and a trip to the excellent Makars Mash with Katie and James, which I am desperate to return to so that I can work through all of the mash potato varieties.
We also visited Edinburgh Castle (which I’ve done before) and the Botanic Garden (which I hadn’t – and it’s free!) in addition to lots of nice walks and – as you’d expect with a two-year old – sampling the quality of many different playgrounds. I also got in trouble for teaching the next generation how the on/off switches work on noisy Fisher Price toys. I regret nothing.
Wednesday’s train to London was significantly enhanced by loading up with a plentiful selection of wine and cheeses for the journey, so we were well-fed by the time we arrived back at our flat. Catherine and AJ had stayed with us back when we lived in Tulse Hill, but this was the first time they got to see our Forest Hill home in person and Randi and I had spent weeks strategising about how much of the local area we could plausibly show them over a few days. In the end we managed to pack in a fair amount! From morning cardamon buns on the High Road to the playground at the top of Blythe Hill, the Waterlink Way, the Horniman Museum and Gardens (including the aquarium and petting zoo!), the Crystal Palace dinosaurs and the Perry Hill pub, we covered a decent amount of our South East London slice.
We also had a two year old’s birthday to celebrate, for which we turned to the ultimate birthday destination of all time: the London Transport Museum! Having clamoured around the buses (she really liked the UK’s buses in general) we stocked up on gifts from the glorious shop, although TfL have not yet released official merchandise for the new London Overground line names so – clearly – I will be back.
That evening we also celebrated with a classic Colin the Caterpillar birthday cake, which went down well with everyone. Other meals in London included sharing every single vegetarian dish on the menu at Padella (no regrets) and an evening at the Mayflower pub before an evening walk along the river to Tower Bridge.
On Sunday, Catherine and AJ’s friend Mark had managed to get us all tickets to West Ham vs Liverpool, so we set off for Stratford for only my second in-person football match (PE excepted). On the plus side:
- The inherent pessimism of Forever Blowing Bubbles is genuinely charming.
- It was only £6.50 for a pint, which is much less than the outrageous markup I was expecting.
- The guy seated behind us offered an excellent running commentary – not only about the game, but also useful contextual information about West Ham’s woes (“moving to this soulless urban hellscape”, “not having anyone with strategy” etc.) and, as a bonus, the improvement in his previously fractured relationship with his father.
On the other hand, the atmosphere was more ‘weary resignation’ than full-blooded enthusiasm, which I guess is in keeping with the song. And it was a 2-2 draw, so the whole thing could have been written off from the start.
(Here ends Dominic’s match report.)
After the match we wandered down to Victoria Park, which surely must win the award for the most expensive and impressive children’s playground of the week. The next evening, on Catherine and AJ’s last night in London, we met up with Mark and other friends in a pub in Leytonstone: the good kind of pub, with space for kids to run around while the adults talked about football or (in my case) learnt super-interesting things on non-football topics like universities, organ donation and GP funding reform. (Still no opportunity to slip anything into conversation about leaseholders or Work Capacity Assessments, though.)
That’s probably enough incoherent rambling for now – I’d hate to get burnout and fail to deliver on my “another 20 years” promise. Although, in closing:
- We very much enjoyed watching the Science Fair documentary together, so thanks to Katie for the excellent recommendation!
- I was very much creeped out watching the BBC’s Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370 on my own.
- I am hugely relieved at Sadiq Khan’s re-election, and that my jitters about the polls were wrong. The fact remains – as both Catherine and AJ agreed – that Sadiq’s text layout choices in the London Elects candidate information booklet were… questionable. Call us next time. (Congrats also to Count Binface for defeating Britain First – this does make me proud.)
This post is dedicated to the Lazy Chef café outside Forest Hill station.
Randi and I used to go for brunch at the weekend, but the last few times she’s been in Scotland.
The staff clearly believe we’ve broken up because they no longer ask how she’s doing.
We went to Norway! It was a relatively last-minute decision to spend a long Easter weekend in Bergen, but it’s such a quick hop from London that it seemed irresistible once we’d thought of it. It wouldn’t be your first choice to escape a rainy British bank holiday, since Bergen (or “Bergen?”, as the playful sign outside the airport puts it) is even more famous for rain, but as it turned out we got lucky with plenty of sun and only tiny smatterings of rain.
As a politics nerd, the joke about Scandinavian countries is that they’re all little social democratic utopias which those on the left will always reach for as the league-table-topping exemplar of what we should do. (“In Finland, all children learn quantum physics through outdoor play! In Denmark, prisoners produce award-winning plays about restorative justice! In Sweden, there are more weekend days than weekdays!”) Of course, all of these places are not mystical fantasy lands but actual real places which you can always just go and visit. But with all that said, things do seem pretty great in Norway. The country’s rich, everyone seems to be out jogging all the time, and the walls of the tram tunnels have been decorated with brightly-coloured party lights seemingly just for the hell of it. Let’s all move to Norway!
We joined a walking tour on Saturday morning to get acquainted with our new home, and benefitted from a great guide who had moved from southern Italy to Norway during a quarter-life crisis and massively confused her parents in the process. A lot of the tour focused on Bryggen – the area of Bergen where colourful warehouses owned by the medieval Hanseatic League sit up against the harbour – and it felt like a good sequel to all of the prime Hanseatic League content from our walking tour of Gotland in Sweden last year.
For more recent Bergen history, we also visited the (free!) Bergenhus Fortress Museum which focuses on the city’s local resistance movement against Nazi occupation between 1940 and 1945. It’s obviously very moving to see the faces of ordinary people who were arrested and sent to camps, and you wonder – in a place as relatively small as this – how many local visitors would still be able to recognise family members in these photographs.
The most accessible mountain in Bergen is Fløyen, which can be reached via a couple of different walking routes starting just behind the city centre. There’s also a funicular, which runs frequently, although the first time we just chose to walk through the fairytale-esque mossy green forest. Near the top sits some kind of nursery/daycare centre, which seems excessively idyllic, while the summit itself is a busy and popular gathering place with your standard café, playground and troll garden. (There are lot of trolls in Norway.)
We waited until Monday to do our proper hike from Fløyen: the 13km Vidden Trail, which runs along the mountain plateau to neighbouring Mount Ulriken. We weren’t 100% sure whether we were going to be able to do this, since it’s only ‘recommended’ to tourists between May and October, and our walking tour guide (who self-described as absolutely not a hiker) wasn’t encouraging. Fortunately, we got talking to a solo Norwegian tourist from Oslo at dinner one night and he confirmed that all of the ice on the route had indeed melted, leaving only snow, and that it was perfectly manageable in hiking boots. Thank you, random Norwegian man!
After some debate, we also chose to walk from Fløyen to Ulriken rather than the other way around. This meant going slightly more uphill than downhill, but to be honest – on a sunny day with no wind! – it didn’t make a great deal of difference as there isn’t a lot of elevation change either way. As always, the hike proved to be the highlight of the whole trip, even though towards the end I was grumbling about the combination of snow and rocks which result in some very, very tired legs. It’s worth noting that although Bergen itself is full of English-speaking tourists, we passed almost no-one on the Vidden Trail speaking English. Instead, they all seemed to be Scandinavians making everything look absurdly easy: jogging up and down rockfaces without a care in the world. We got to Ulriken in a perfectly reasonable time, but I don’t normally feel like I’m part of the absolute slowest group on a hike!
From Ulriken we took the cable car back down to Bergen and headed to a Thai restaurant for a much-needed warm dinner. In general, as you’d expect, eating out in Norway is incredibly expensive – with variable results – but the three places which really made me happy were:
- Fjellskaal, an amazing fish restaurant by the harbour where everything tasted delicious. I had the smoked salmon starter and the salty pickled herring Spekesild for main, but Randi’s soup was also incredible. This was also where the helpful Norwegian hiker encouraged us to pursue our Vidden dreams.
- Trekroneren, the internationally-renowned Bergen hot dog stand. One prime reason to move to Bergen is so that I can complete my exhaustive journey through the menu.
- The Godt Brød bakery chain, which is everywhere, meaning that tasty cardamom buns are also everywhere.
We also spent a fair amount of time just chilling in our delightful Airbnb, which was within easy walking distance of everything and made impressively efficient use of all available space. Bizarrely, I stumbled across a channel devoted exclusively to classic episodes of Robot Wars, so I had the unexpected joy of reliving great childhood moments like Panic Attack flipping Matilda, competitors messing up the pinball challenge, and a hyped-up crowd chanting PIT PIT PIT. We also used this opportunity to finish Season 2 of the The Bear, which was great, so now Randi and I are in the unusual situation of being fully up-to-date and just waiting for the next season to come out like everybody else!
On our last day we had time for one final, beautiful walk from Mount Fløyen – much more gentle, no rocks or snow this time – before grabbing a hot chocolate from Fjåk and realising that, oh no, they actually have a huge range of different hot chocolate options and we’ll just have to come back to Norway again to try more. And then, sadly, it was time to come back home. Bergen was such a perfect Easter break and just what we both needed during a busy time at work. In short: highly recommended if you’re looking for astounding views and tasty fish.
Finally, I popped over to Carolyn’s yesterday for Austin’s Peppa Pig-themed birthday party – happy birthday Austin! – which was really lovely. On the way I listened to a lot of silly AI-generated music courtesy of Suno, which is finally a generative AI tool which seems actually useful to me personally. And yes, I define “actually useful” as the ability to instantly produce catchy tunes on very niche topics – like some 90s Europop about the evils of Daylight Savings Time, a Broadway ode to the Waterlink Way or an upbeat rap anthem for our Ops team at work – because deep down all I’ve ever wanted is to live inside that musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…
This month I’ve watched a bunch of interesting things, so this post is more like an old-school Abbi review blog:
Macbeth
Specifically, the production starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma and staged in a great big warehouse in Canada Water. It’s very evocative. The set is scorched by a burning vehicle, assaulted by the sound of missiles and – at an appropriate moment – the walls are even soaked in blood.
What’s it about?
You probably know this one: Lord Macbeth, an 11th century Scottish general, learns from a trio of prophesying witches that he is destined to become King of Scotland. At the urging of his ruthless wife, he promptly kills the current King Duncan to speed things along, kicking off a bloody cycle of murder and madness.
Idiocy analysis
I’m very fond of Macbeth as a play (thanks, multiple English teachers!) but Macbeth the character is unforgivably stupid. He should be the only character with an ironclad motive not to murder the King, given that he is the only person in the world with supernatural assurances that he will inherit the crown anyway(!) and everytime I watch him yield to Lady Macbeth’s emasculating schtick I am internally screaming for him to grow a brain and/or backbone and just calmly point this out to her. But no. Macbeth is the guy who sees the path of a wildfire inexorably approaching his house and rushes in with a can of petrol to try and commit insurance fraud.
Who did you see it with?
Kira, who suggested we get tickets last year! Hat-tip to Annie who recommended an excellent Mexican spot in Surrey Quays to grab beforehand.
Have you changed your mind about this play since childhood?
No. In fact, in school I wrote a defence lawyer’s speech on behalf of the three witches arguing that they “have not murdered, or even requested or suggested murder” but “simply predicted a chain of events which can be interpreted in many different ways”.
I added that it was “of course, regrettable, that Macbeth turned to murder” but noted that – in their second encounter, when Macbeth comes back to the witches looking for more predictions – “the witches had every right to mislead a murderer, if the intention was to lead to his downfall, and if it was in the public good. They simply aided Macduff in his fight, in an unorthodox way”. Honestly, I’m not even sure I was asked to write this. I just remember feeling aggrieved on behalf of the weird sisters.
Timecrimes
A low-budget 2007 Spanish sci-fi thriller film (originally Los cronocrímenes).
What’s it about?
Through his binoculars, middle-aged Héctor spots a woman undressing in the forest opposite his home. Intrigued, he goes off to investigate and accidentally stumbles into a casual time-travel loop with deadly consequences.
Idiocy analysis
Héctor, much like Macbeth, is not a smart man. If we tastefully set aside the question of why he chooses to sit on a deckchair in his back garden staring at some secluded woodland through binoculars (everyone needs a hobby, I guess) the main problem with Héctor is that he has clearly never watched a single time-travel film in his life. Not even Back to the Future.
As a result he is unforgivably slow to understand the basic concepts, even when another character draws him a Time Travel for Dummies diagram in marker pen, and goes out of his way to alienate everyone he meets. The only saving grace is that he does eventually get the hang of things, even by that point he has blood on his hands. More of a bumbling idiot than a mad plotter.
Who did you see it with?
Nobody, although since Katie recommended it (as a sequel to fellow low-budget time travel thriller Primer) she got my real-time reaction.
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet’s Oscar-winning French film (Anatomie d’une chute), which you should definitely watch if you haven’t already because the more people to swap theories with the better.
What’s it about?
Superficially, a courtroom drama about whether Sandra Voyter, a successful author, murdered her husband in their French chalet while their son, Daniel, was out walking the dog through the snow. But in fact (spoiler alert!) it’s impossible to know, and so the film is really about our own perceptions of two people in a marriage, culture and language (she is German, he is French, they speak English) and the stories we all construct to make sense of a consuming, fragmentary world.
But… honestly, I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s also just a lot of fun to watch as a whodunnit and then spend hours arguing about it with other people.
Idiocy analysis
Everyone here is too smart and thoughtful for any idiocy, although the French legal system does come across as bafflingly obtuse. To my mind, it’s extremely clear that – even if you’re sure she killed him! – the evidence is all circumstantial supposition and never even approaches ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ territory, so I’m not sure what they’re even doing in a courtroom. I’m sure this reflects an overly-romantic image of English prosecutors, though. In reality Sandra would probably still be stuck in a backlog and waiting for the case to reach trial.
Who did you see it with?
My mum, after a crab-laden dinner at Big Cheeks Thai, on the night she stayed over. We had to pause several times for discussion breaks.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Sarah Snook’s amazing one-woman performance in which she plays all of the characters from Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel.
What’s it about?
Dorian Gray is young and beautiful. He falls under the corrupting influence of Lord Henry Wotton, a cynic who advocates hedonism with a string of one-liners which would do extremely well on any social media platform today. Frustrated that he will grow old while his portrait will stay youthful, Dorian sells his soul in return for keeping his good looks forever and allowing the portrait to age in his place. It doesn’t go well.
Idiocy analysis
Well, Dorian himself is obviously not going to win any prizes for wisdom, but that’s the whole point: he’s a naïve innocent who quickly becomes selfish and cruel. But the real idiots are surely the story’s Victorian critics, who first tried to censor the homoeroticism (not very successfully) and later attacked Wilde, including in court, for the book’s indecency and immorality. Guys: please try to follow along to the end. The hedonist ends up dead.
Who did you see it with?
Kira, although this time it was my idea. And yes, of course I wouldn’t have gone had it not been for Succession, but Sarah Snook delivered with huge energy going into such a range of characters. The staging also really leaned into a knowing commentary on modern life, especially with Snook’s livestreamed selfie videos, which I thought served the story well.
Other highlights of March include: another wonderful evening with Karol at Tayyabs in Whitechapel, a truly delicious date night with Randi at a fancy tapas place (still thinking about that black squid rice), the unbearable tension of the nail-biting Lewisham mayoral by-election and a gentle evening of Carcassonne with our neighbour Adrienn.
I also administered lots and lots of ‘Life in the UK’ practice tests for Randi in the run-up to her exam – final spoiler: she passed! 🥳 – which occasionally veered into such pure pub quiz territory (e.g. where was Handel born?) that we couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity. Finally, on Friday night I took Matthew on a spooky night tour of the Waterlink Way, followed by dinner and music at the Honor Oak pub. The next morning I headed up to West Hampstead to hang out with Josh and Cora and to return Cora’s cat, which I accidentally stole last time I saw them!
Time for the traditional rubbish first-few-months-of-the-year blog! You know the one: where most fun activities still take place indoors, sans Christmas decorations or scenic summer vistas, so instead I need to keep thinking of different synonyms for “I had a drink with…” to keep the blog going. Oh well. You can follow Tash and Cormac on Polarsteps instead, if you prefer.
Drink #1 (in this narrative, at least) was actually a mimosa with Kira over bunch several weeks back in Dulwich Village. Drinks #2, #3 , #4 etc. were a few days later on a wonderful night out with Matthew, who I hadn’t seen for years and years! In return for my willingness to hop over to Ladbroke Grove on a school night, he crafted an excellent local pub crawl for the two of us, during which we caught up on the last decade or so, apologised unnecessarily for weird things we both said when we were 17, rehashed our mind/body debate from the Brent-Eton summer school (I’m still right) and started a whole new battle on the merits of the Central line. It was a blast.
Later that week I also hung out with current/former colleagues Klaudia and “three schwas in my name” Vanessa, which – as you can tell – descended unexpectedly into some really quite delightfully nerdy linguistics chat. Usually you can immediately spot people’s eyes scanning for the exit when I say something like “Guess what I learnt from a YouTube video on rhotics!” but this was the perfect group for such matters.
Randi missed all of this, just like she missed my spontaneous outing to Morden and Morden Park (the perfect place to stride across a muddy field while listening to a hypnotic 13 minute-long BBC News countdown theme remix, since you ask), but she was back in London the week afterwards in time for Caroline and Josh’s dinner party. Caroline and Josh are basically the only couple we have left who are still committed to the classic ‘invite a bunch of people who don’t know each other’ dinner party concept, and it’s great to be able to freeride off their hard work by meeting a bunch of interesting new people all at once. (Including someone who worked for my aunt, which briefly made me nervous.) Oh, and the food was delicious too!
A weekend later we finally hosted Alix, Adam and Austin at our flat – they have been very slow and nervous about venturing south of the river – and devoured Randi’s incredible smoked salmon frittata before enjoying a walk up Blythe Hill. Many thanks to Austin for being a legitimate reason to see the cool playground up there! My mum has also stayed with us a couple of times recently (despite fierce competition from a plethora of London options) and we all had a lovely evening together in our local fancy Italian, Nonna Maria, where my mum was delighted that her Italian is still good enough to pick up rude words on the menu.
Last weekend I joined Randi in Scotland for an extended weekend trip to celebrate Kirsty’s birthday! As you’d expect we celebrated in the traditional way: canvassing sessions, fondue, a Randi-made chocolate birthday cake, haggis cigars and a three-part Channel 4 documentary on the 1984 miners’ strike. (Clarification: haggis cigars consist of haggis in spring rolls, and are not smoked.)
On Sunday I had my usual day off from door knocking for another classic Doctor Who session with Katie and James. After a long break, we decided to return to Tom Baker’s ‘Key to Time’ season with The Androids of Tara, a jaunty low-stakes adventure set in a medieval society which just happens to have electro-swords and androids thrown in. Despite a lacklustre ending this was pretty pacy and fun for most of the story. It probably peaks at the point when the evil Count Grendel’s poor, loyal servant Lamia – a lovestruck peasant who is also the local expert on androids – is mercilessly killed off by a stray shot and completely unlamented. #teamLamia
I’m really not sure when I last saw my American cousins David and Ginger – quite possibly as far back as 2016! – so it was very exciting to see them again on Monday night after we had trained back to London. Randi and I notched up another Ottolenghi restaurant with a meal at NOPI (such exceptionally tasty food) before taking them to A Mirror: an extremely funny play-within-a-play political thriller set in a heavy censored, totalitarianish state. I loved it, partly because it was just so enjoyable to watch, but also because it had a more sophisticated take on politics and art than your bog standard 1984-inspired dystopia. (Side-note: I recognised one of the actors – the electrifyingly charismatic Jude Akuwudike – from last year’s Immersive 1984, where he played a very similar role. My conclusion is that Akuwudike is not, in fact, an actor but rather a genuine totalitarian bureaucrat who has simply slipped through the gaps between worlds.)
I feel a little bad about all of this because all of the preceding paragraph was originally Alix and Adam’s plan for themselves. Unfortunately for them, work got in the way and so Randi and I were the happy beneficiaries of their beautifully-crafted evening. Sorry! On Thursday night we also took advantage of our Chicago friend Karol being in the UK for a wedding, so were lucky enough to get to host him in London for a night and fill ourselves to bursting at The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe. Oh, and talking of weddings: congrats to Jess and Adam, whose beautiful ceremony was admired by all the Selfs on the livestream today! I hope Katie packed her speech with enough Scottish-themed jokes.
Finally: Portugal! Last weekend, Randi and I popped down to Lisbon to join Mike and Melissa for our first trip of 2024, and – given the comparative warmth and sunshine compared to London – treated it as a summer holiday even though all of the Portuguese locals were walking around in heavy duty coats as if it was cold. (Seriously, the receptionist at our hotel was genuinely concerned about my welfare in a short-sleeved shirt and asked her colleague to check up on my welfare/sanity the next day.) From our perspective it was lovely and sunny!
After arriving on Friday night – and admiring the efficient metro ride from the airport, naturally – we spent Saturday morning wandering through Lisbon’s gorgeous cobbled streets in the vague direction of the Alfama district. In the same vein as London’s double-decker buses, Lisbon is clearly very proud of their little yellow trams which manage to weave up and down the narrow hilly streets. Later, after coming close to passing ourselves off as Mike and Melissa to their Airbnb host, the four of us took a less magical (but still very good) modern tram to a fancy restaurant for dinner, at which I very much enjoyed my ‘private pie’ in addition to duck rice.
As an aside, we also became very fond of the ‘intern’ working at our hotel whose duties included staffing the little rooftop bar. He didn’t seem entirely comfortable with his duties – most notably asking Melissa if she wouldn’t mind opening our bottle of wine as he didn’t know how to – but he won us over with his apologetic charm and constant refrain about his difficult internship. Wisely, he was not trusted to run the hotel’s breakfast.
The next day we took the train to Sintra, a town about 45 minutes away which is a major tourist destination thanks to multiple palaces and natural parks. We were there for the hike to the Moorish Castle, originally built in the 8th and 9th centuries and later taken by the Christians during the Reconquista. It felt like the absolute perfect time to be there – great weather for exploring and beautiful views, but not so hot or crowded that it was ever uncomfortable. At one point someone behind me did complain about the lack of a railing, but I wasn’t brave enough to suggest that she take this oversight up with the Moors.
Rather than heading straight home at the end of the weekend I had already had the glorious revelation that a fair few of my colleagues at work are based in Porto, so it was of course totally legitimate for me to take the train up there on Sunday night and invite myself over to work from their office for a couple of days. Huge thanks to the team there for hosting me and generously acceding to my eccentric requests, including asking Vitor to record the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter R at the beginning of words to confirm Randi’s mind-blowing discovery of how different it is to the Spanish R. (R is a tricky letter anyway. Honestly it’s best to avoid pronouncing it at all where you can.)
My journey to Porto was incredibly smooth – both the long-distance train and the impressive Porto Metro once I arrived – and I was only momentarily thrown by the weirdness of the ticket inspection on the Portuguese railways whereby they aren’t interested in seeing your ticket at all, but rather your ID (in my case, my passport!) under which you booked. It’s a little odd that you can travel across the entire Schengen area from country to country without any border checks, and yet it’s harder to be incognito on a train from Lisbon to Porto!
I’m hesitant to say too much about Porto because I was just working from an office most of the time, and so I had to demur when eager Porto residents asked me to compare it to the capital. I was very excited when the team agreed to take me to have Francesinha for lunch: a “strange cheesy bread cheesy cheese thing” which Steve at work issued as a warning but I took as an absolute must-do. A dish native to Porto, the name means ‘little French woman’ for some reason and is clearly a hangover cure, served with chips and an optional egg. It was delicious.
On Monday night my teammates Vitor and Paulo kindly took me down to the historic centre so I could get a little flavour of the historical tourist bits, although being authentic residents they didn’t actually know the names of the famous buildings we walked past. I did love the amazing walls of the central train station, but was not as much of a fan of the scary Dom Luís I Bridge which I refused to venture very far along. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine bridge, but I was maybe starting to identify with the woman back in Sintra who wanted more railings.) After surviving the bridge we did the obvious thing while in Porto and shared some glasses of port together, which I wasn’t sure about but very much enjoyed. Perhaps this will finally move along the bottle of port which has been sitting in our kitchen ever since Beth and Stewart lifted it from a hotel room in Cambridge.
My final reflection on Portugal – other than that I loved it, and would definitely go back – is that I quickly formed a deep affection for the café owner on the route between my hotel and the office. Randi had already admired the Portuguese culture of standing together socially at the bar, sharing a morning coffee, and after coming to terms with my need for tea he seemed genuinely concerned that I wanted it ‘tomar’ – to go – in a lonely Anglo way 😉
But wait- we’re nearly a month into 2024, so let’s quickly catch-up on pre-Portugal events. Similar to last year, Randi spent New Year with Catherine and AJ in Chicago, while this time I hosted Oliver and Abi at mine for New Year’s Eve along with Sarah and Kat. Kat turns out to be a massive fireworks fan, so after watching the central London display on TV there was a sweet moment when everyone came up to our loft bedroom and took turns standing on the bed and sticking their heads out of our loft windows into the night air to try and catch a glimpse of other fireworks nearby. We also played more Cobra Paw and Bonanza, a bean-themed card game which was delightful.
After a respectful number of bottles had been drunk, and successfully convinced Oliver & Abi to stay overnight before going home in the morning, I spent most of New Year’s Day up in North London with Andy and Bonnie. After a hearty pub lunch, we enjoyed a muddy walk through Highgate Wood during which I was genuinely shocked by Bonnie’s ability to instantly recall intricate plot points from any Agatha Christie novel. Definitely a Mastermind specialist subject.
Other January adventures included a wonderful Saturday in West Hamstead with Josh, Anna and Cora (after which I accidentally stole Cora’s cat – sorry!) and the successful execution of a paid deep-clean for our flat. I mention the latter because, embarrassingly, it took so much longer than expected that the company ended up calling me with a tone of “we haven’t heard from our cleaner in hours… is she alive?”. But she did an amazing job, and our taps were so shiny that I sent Randi a photo of my face reflected in them before ordering a pizza, eating it straight from the pizza box while sitting on the floor of the living room (too terrified of touching any surfaces in case I ruined them) and then going straight to bed so that Randi could still enjoy the results of the deep clean when she arrived back the next day.
Randi and I also had an impromptu walking day one weekend through Wandsworth Common and on to Battersea Park, finishing at the reopened Battersea Power Station luxury shopping centre thing (I expect they don’t like it being called a ‘shopping centre’) which I hadn’t seen inside yet. It is very cool, although we just admired the architecture and didn’t actually buy anything. We also had a very fun pasta-based outing with Reema and Esther and have also officially started watching our next series – The Bear – so I look forward to telling you what I think about it in 2028 when we finish. (I joke: we’ll try to move faster, since Randi has a temporary Disney+ subscription just for this.)
Jeff DuBowe on Haarlem globetrotters: “One of our favorite spots. Super walking city. I think we were the ones who told your In-Laws about it…” Oct 14, 15:15
