Author: claire_nelson

It’s the middle of April in Quebec City, the sun is high and the sky is a cool, clear blue. Not that you’d know it was Spring. The city is frozen: framed in snow drifts, carpeted in ice. As I walked around in the early morning, I have to tred carefully, minding each step doesn’t land me on my arse – shuffling, I realised, just like a penguin. (Might penguins, I wondered, actually stride if you put them on a non-slip surface? No. Forget I asked that.)

It was -11 degrees and if my hands emerged from my gloves for even a minute, they would sting and start to go numb. Icicles hung from doorways. Step and bridge access points to Montmorency Park were so buried in snow they’d been barred off. A man in a heavy jacket clambered over the roofs of the shops on Rus du Petit Champlain, shovelling off the snow and ice, letting it hail down on the cobbled avenue below, as his colleague, wearing orange hi-vis, stood sentry in the street and bellowed up a warning when pedestrians passed by.

Presumably the task was to avoid an avalanche on unsuspecting shoppers later in the day. Indeed only yesterday a large sheet of snow had come plummeting down from an office block as I was passing below, and crashed right at my feet. The woman right in front of me had, as far as I was concerned, reacted perfectly – which was to whirl around and exclaim a high-pitched “Mon dieu!”

Thank god indeed that I wasn’t crushed by falling ice, as I’ve only just got to Quebec City and for one, I would have missed out on trying Quebeois ice wine. Looking for an excuse to get out of the cold – and the showers of snow from the roof sweeper – I stepped into a charming little cidrerie, manned by a nice old chap, the sort who smiles with his whole face: eyes a-twinkle and chin a-crinkle. As I tasted a range of ice wines and ciders – made from the region’s apples, which freeze in the cold but in the process become lovely and sweet – he admitted the temperature was not normal for this time of year. “We are maybe… 9 or 10 degrees less than what is usual,” he explained, in his French-Canadian twang. (I liked how he said this with the nonchalance one might use when talking about a 2-degree margin. Buddy, in the UK, 10 degrees is jumping a whole season.)

He asked where I was from and his twinkly eyes widened when I told him. “New Zealand!” he sighed. “Ah it is my dream.” I couldn’t help feeling a sense of strange irony that here I was in Canada because I had similar yearnings. However, I did my duty as a wandering Kiwi and answered his most pressing questions about travel to the other side of the earth, before purchasing a bottle of ice cider. I asked if I might have one more sample – y’know, to warm me up for the road? The man gave a twinkly smile and passed me another cup. In a place where it’s cold enough for apples to freeze on their branches, I kinda think the friendliness of Canadians offers life-giving warmth.

But also, cider.

And gloves. Don’t forget your gloves.

In a New Zealand-inspired coffeeshop in central Toronto, the young, hip Canadian barista is making me a dirty chai – that’s a chai latte with an all-important shot of espresso: possibly the greatest crossover of all time – while we discuss The State of Things. “The world feels so crazy right now,” says the barista, with the familiar world-weary bafflement we all seem to reserve specially for this topic. “It’s like…” He searches for the words. “No… It’s just that: crazy. When I was a kid in school, reading about World War Two and Hitler, I remember thinking, ‘C’mon, how could that even happen?’ And now we have an American President refusing to condemn actual Nazis.” I remark that Canada feels like one of the politically saner places to be right now. He purses his lips, leans his head to the side and ‘hmmmms’ as he froths the jug of milk. “I’m not so sure about that. The whole world feels so unstable lately. America used to be one of the brighter countries, but it’s fallen so far from it.” There is, we agreed, optimism in what comes next. History might threaten to repeat itself, but maybe we’ll find we’ve learned just enough from what has gone before to change the arc of the story. “Look at all the marches, protests, especially about gun laws, I mean, that’s so great,” he says, handing me my cup of elixir. “It gives me hope.”

It’s not the first time I’ve talked politics with a barista since I moved to Canada three weeks ago. (It’s also my gazillionth dirty chai.) But then, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops – they have become little havens. Not only do they provide good, affordable coffee and free wifi, but there I can be amongst other people. The benefits of this being that I feel less alone, and that I get to tune into the world around me, listening to conversations and having chats with baristas – some of whom now greet me by name. (Y’know, I frequented the same coffee places in London for weeks on end and I almost never got so much as a nod of familiar recognition. I say almost never because once I got a hesitant squint, which I decided to take as a sign they remembered me from the previous day.) This is one of the things I love about Canada – people here are so friendly, and more than happy to chat. For the most part, talking to strangers elicits an opportunity to share, rather than the horrified suspicion I’ve grown so used to in London. Strangers on the bus will get into an enthusiastic yarn about traffic. Locals walking their dogs will stop on the street, their pooches engaged in a snuffling rotation of nose to butt while the owners enjoy an unhurried exchange of doggy anecdotes, laughing and talking more like old friends than people who literally just met on the street. The dude who sorted my local phone contract spent half an hour showing me around his home town on Google street view so I’ll have more context if I visit it on my travels. Canadians, I have come to realise, are remarkably open to the people around them.

This is in spite of the fact most coffee shops I go to are, when I look around, a vast sea of laptops, every one with a coffee drinker attached, plugged into the digital world. And I’ve become one of them. Around Toronto you can find the odd cafe that frowns upon laptops, refusing to provide wifi as a deterrent to the digi renegades who threaten to turn them into a hot-desking office. Which I totally understand. ‘No wifi here: make a real connection and TALK’, reads the sign in one such coffeeshop. But Canadians talk plenty. And I, too, will find more opportunities to talk when working away in these coffee shops. Conversations will be struck up with people at the next table, or beside me at the counter; with the baristas or their friends who pop in to chat; or to someone who comes in with a toddler or with a dog, either of which might totter over to my table and beg for some of my biscuit.

I know I have to get out from behind my laptop, and I will – there is a helluva lot of Canada to explore. (Honestly, it’s pretty fecking big you guys.) But the fact remains – you’ll always find me in a coffee shop somewhere or another, listening to people, soaking up the atmosphere, being a part of something – in a funny way, feeling a connection. And the way the world’s going lately, I’m all for taking them where I can find them.

Five of my favourite Toronto coffee spots:
Safehouse (Dundas W)
Run & Gun (Dundas W)
Jimmy’s Coffee (Kensington)
Fantail (Roncesvalles)
Field Trip (Bloor W)

I was probably feeling a little too pleased with myself. That must have been it. A Monday morning, up before the dawn, I had – swaddled in my faux fur coat, my comfy trainers on and coffee held jauntily aloft – sailed through all the usual scans and checks to take my seat on a Eurostar. It was a day trip to Paris; a hop across the Channel for little mooch about, for no other reason than it being possible, and something I’ve not taken advantage of nearly enough. Strange, how we can feel content in the assurance of possibility, but forget to actually DO the thing. I silently applauded two-months-ago-me who had snapped up tickets for £28 each way. (Nice work, two-months-ago-me, you deserve a croissant.)

Taking the 5.40am train from Kings Cross will deliver you into the cavernous echoing throng of Gare du Nord by 9.17am, which is precisely the right time to hit the nearest boulangerie. (Well, get well clear of the station first.) Take the 8.13pm back that evening and you can be home in Blighty by 9.39pm, ready to fall straight into bed. With check-in times and all, you’ll have a little over 9 hours to spend in the City of Lights.

But plans, as it is in life, can sometimes go wrong. The Eurostar emerged from the dark of the Channel tunnel into the bright morning of the Normandy countryside… and then lurched to a complete stop. We sat there a bit. We sat there a bit longer. Eventually we were informed the train had broken down, the power was switched off, and there we continued to sit for the next three hours. Eventually the train was rolled into Lille, where we were shimmied onto a replacement train to Gare du Nord. By this point it was 1.30pm. And I was gasping for a pastry.

• 

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• 

Five and a half hours in Paris is better than no hours in Paris. But since my time had been so brutally slashed, so too was my itinerary. Gone was early morning browsing of the flea markets at Cliquencourt. Gone was the climb to the top of the Arc de Triomphe (I’ve still never done that). Gone was the cultural musings amongst the art in the Musée d’Orsay. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful crisp autumn day in Paris, so I dispensed with the Metro – gone – and set off on foot.

I ventured through the gritty, pretty streets of the Marais, to Yann Couvreur, for un cafe latte and a fist-sized pistachio pastry scroll. My wanderings took me past Chanel, where I resisted temptation to enter the gates of style and instead treated myself to some elegant ballpoint pens from Papier Tigre. I browsed the racks of chic but eye-wateringly expensive vintage clothing and stacks of cool modern kitchenware at Merci, and crossed the river to poke around Shakespeare & Co, the bookshop I am determined to go to whenever in Paris. They have a new cafe attached, and curiosity – plus a growing urgency to charge my phone, which I was using as my camera – took me inside, where I plugged in my charger behind a stack of satisfyingly leafed-through books and ordered a noisette. (Only after the first sip remembered that noisette coffee has nothing to do with hazelnuts. I may well forget this again.) From there I strolled the backstreets of St Germain, past the cafes and restaurants with their rows of little tables on the pavement, stopping to buy the perfect Breton from Saint James and popping in to La Chambre aux Confitures to try the handmade jams. The day could not have been more perfect, the air cool and crisp, the trees that lined the Seine turned to an avenue of gold, and people wrapped up in smart coats and light wafty scarves. Paris in the spring time is lyricised often, but Paris in the autumn is especially glorious.

The afternoon was fading into evening by the time I crossed the Pont Royal and made my way through the well-kept Jardin des Tuileries. And now I was running dangerously low on battery (thanks to four hours on a powerless Eurostar). This was the moment I realised, unhappily, that for all my determination to ignore my phone I still relied on it, not only as a camera, but as my map and clock. The streets west of Pyramides loomed grey and empty, all glitzy hotels and offices and fine-dining – no cafes to be seen – and my always-comfortable shoes began to give me blisters as I roamed the blocks. Until at last, I staggered into Cafe de la Comedie, a little red-toned brasserie on Rue St Honore. The only table with a plug socket, I was informed, was the one beside the bar – a great place to sit and keep warm from the autumnal evening, to watch the comings and goings of the patrons and to listen to the weathered old barman sing quietly to himself as he polished the glasses. I ordered a Campari and gentiane de salers from the waitress with angel wings tattooed on her shoulders. Later, phone and sanity suitably recharged, I went to pay; a problem of minimum card spend was solved, thanks to my Parisian angel, by ordering a campari and soda in a coffee cup, to go. The old barman, amused, muttered something in French as he tipped ice into a cup and prepared my well-disguised dirty secret. One for the road!

• 

• 

• 

I sipped my drink and giggled to myself, shrouded in a light Campari haze, as I made my way to E.Dehillerin. This famous kitchenware store is somehow both tiny and cavernous at once, its high-ceiling and basement-level shelves stocked to the rafters with all things cookery, customers squeezing through the gaps. Everything – from enormous stainless steel soup pots to the tiniest sugar spoon – is labelled with a number corresponding to their hefty catalogues.  I had tried, and failed, to get here on two previous visits to the city, so was not leaving empty handed. I selected a lovely little paring knife with a wooden handle for just a few euros, E.Dehillerin etched into its blade. Whenever I use it I can remember being there, browsing the wares, cocktail in hand and ever so slightly tipsy.

Finally, with an hour before my check-in at Gare du Nord, I stopped for a meal. Walking-weary and coming off my Campari buzz, I found a table in a corner and plopped myself into the red-leather banquette. The good-humoured waiter even accepted my paltry French. I liked this place. Only once my steak bavette and frites arrived did I realise how hungry I actually was and swatted away the usual norms of etiquette and trying to appear elegantly Parisian. I hoofed that food down, my friends, and it was magnifique. Shortly after, having made it back to the station, I sailed right through the immigration process once again. It is the best way to travel. However, the Eurostar heading home was busier than the one I’d been stranded on that morning, and I would not be travelling alone. I took my seat next to a stubbly ol’ snowy-haired gent with a beaten-up jacket and an American accent; ordinarily I would put my polite Tube face on, and go back to my own train of thought but the day in Paris had shaken loose my uptight sensibilities and instead we got chatting. I learned he was a bassist in a couple of blues and jazz bands, one on either side of the Channel, and as a harmonica-playing blues fanatic, I was glad I’d taken the time to start a conversation. The rest of the journey was spent talking music, literature and the perils of the creative process.

Even though five and a half hours in Paris was less than I’d planned for, my brief escapade abroad left me feeling inspired, nourished, satisfied. A miniature adventure is still an adventure. Sure, sometimes things don’t go to plan. But we are living in times of uncomfortable uncertainty. Perhaps we need reminding that anything could happen at any moment. And so – why not take that damned day trip to Paris?

• 

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• 

“Today I will be happier than a seagull with a stolen chip.” So declared the sign in the pub, where seven of us filled up on fish-finger sandwiches and pints of ale ahead of a blustery walk across the Seven Sisters. I can’t believe I’d not been to Eastbourne before – especially as I actually grew up in another Eastbourne, in Wellington, New Zealand. Both are little seaside towns, both the kind of places city folk might pop round to for an ice cream (and both have seagulls that steal chips), but the comparison ends there.

Where the Eastbourne of my youth was all lush green hills and tiny harbour, here on the Sussex coast it’s all about the white chalk cliffs, the Seven Sisters, looming above shingly beaches. And every day, a throng of day trippers, like us, amble along the tops of them. I can’t decide whether it’s refreshing or actually rather mental that there are no safety measures in place to keep people a safe distance from the sheer cliff edge, where the green grass suddenly turns into thin air. Nothing between yourself and oblivion.

• 

• 

When we stopped for coffee at Birling Gap, a sea-salted man from the National Trust told me the cliffs erode by almost a metre every year. Yet only two weeks after we visited, a 10-metre chunk of cliff gave way, crashing into the sea and killing some pour young soul in the process. And the crazy thing is, we had seen the crack. Friends and I had even stood on it. Because we were foolish, and yes, we dared to stand on the edge. As it turned out, we all ambled our way safely across and strode happily into Seaford, resting our legs in another pub, with another pint, and regale what a breathtaking part of Britain this is. The pub, it turned out, was called The Wellington. Maybe someone up there was looking out for me? Or maybe we were just lucky. But I’ve learned my lesson – always mind the gap.

• 

• 

• 

Messing about on boats is one of those innate New Zealand pastimes that come with the territory of a Kiwi upbringing. (Ironically, this upbringing included many a warning that one should never actually “mess about” on a boat. ‘Have fun in the water but do what you oughta’, right kids?)

Growing up, my dad would take my brothers and I out on our little dinghy with the outboard motor strapped to the back. Life vests on, away we’d go to Ward Island, the distinctive blot in the middle of Wellington harbour. “Dad, can we go out on the boat?” was a recurring refrain of a certain chapter of my childhood.

It therefore felt rather apt to be out on a boat with my brother again this summer. He was visiting me from Sydney, and a friend had arranged a day out on a narrowboat in the Lee Valley. Turns out, messing about on boats is a very British thing as well. In fact, in The Wind in The Willows Rat tells Mole, “There’s nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as messing about in boats”.

Preach.

The folks at Lee Valley Boat Centre must have been heartened by this notion too, because all their boats are named for Kenneth Graham’s characters. We were heading out on one Mr Otter, with picnic packed, drinks in the cooler, and a playlist all lined up and ready to go.

Our optimism about the weather was somewhat admirable, considering it was late May – and the Bank Holiday. This is the time of year when spring is dragged kicking and screaming into early summer, and in the throes of its reluctant tantrum the temperature plummeted and the skies were menacingly grey. We were all freezing; huddled on the tiny benches in the narrow cabin, which just fit us all if we hunched together, side-eyeing the coolerbox and wondering why we didn’t have the foresight to bring tea.

(Although we managed.)

Partly as an attempt to distract myself from the possible onset of hypothermia, I opted to be the first designated driver; I’d steered a narrowboat a couple of times before – years ago an old friend had bought a houseboat on a whim (as you do), and I’d offered to help him bring it down to London via the maze of canals. He’d had no idea what he was doing, I’d had no idea that he had no idea, so we’d had to ask a neighbouring boatie for a few tips and suddenly I was steering someone else’s home down a busy waterway, my heart in my mouth.

In truth, steering a narrowboat is rather easy, because nothing happens quickly. If you are going to crash, it happens in slow motion, like two snails preparing for a head-on collision. You just have to keep an eye on what’s ahead; if you see a corner in the distance you should start steering now, and the boat will chug slowly and gently in response. Patience and planning are key. Perhaps the trickiest thing to master is that if you want to veer left, you steer the tiller to the right. Get that mixed up and next thing you know, you’re taken out by a tree.

Locks, on the other hand, require a little more nous. Or, for fellow novices, a handbook. Always read the handbook when you take out a boat, it’s one of the rule of the high seas. (And the low ones as well.)
This guide from Lee Valley Boats is pretty comprehensive.

But a few important tips to get you started: always go slowly into a lock, make sure the back of your boat is a good couple of metres from the gate or you’ll get stuck on the raised cill when the water drops, and always know where your lock key is. It also helps to have a crew when you’re narrowboating. People to run ahead and check the water levels, others help loop the ropes around the bollards and people to open and close the gates. How boaters do this alone or in pairs astonishes me. But I suppose that’s the difference between us and, well, people who know what they’re doing.

After all our hard work we moored Mr Otter alongside a local pub, locked the doors and shutters and stopped for lunch. Fish and chips all round in the beer garden and thawing out in the sun which had suddenly burst forth through the dismal skies. It turned out to be a glorious afternoon.

Sunshine! That was what we were missing. Now with the sunlight sparkling on the canal, cyclists and dog-walkers drifting past along the bank, music playing on our speakers, everybody draped over bits of the boat, there was an overriding feeling that actually, this messing about on boats thing is rather glorious, isn’t it? That Rat was right – there really isn’t anything else half worth doing.

 

The plane has been there since 1973. To look at the thing now – the torso of an aircraft, riddled with bullets, left to erode on a black beach in southern Iceland – you’d imagine something sinister happened. A tragic crash, a plane shot down in battle, a Bermuda-triangle-style missing airliner. The eeriness of this rusting wreck is its greatest allure.

If you’d prefer to keep it cloaked in mystery, skip this part… But  the truth – or as much of it as I or anyone can gather – is quite charming. This Douglas Dakota aircraft (often referred to as a “DC-3”) was part of the old Icelandic US Navy base at Keflavik. Nobody is certain why it was forced to land in Sólheimasandur (theories abound) but everyone on board survived, dusted themselves off and went home. Once the military had claimed the wings, cockpit and engines, the rest was left to rust on the beach, on what was – and still is – a farmer’s private land. Later, the tail was sawn off by the farmer’s friend, who dragged it back to his place and used it to build his house. As for the bullet holes… the farmer had some buddies over to take pot-shots at it for target practice – because what else do you do with a 5-tonne tin can on your property?

None of this information should remove the mystique of the plane; that remains, simply in its strangeness. It’s a fish out of water. A stark white plane-wreck on a vast, black beach. It’s mesmerising enough that you will create your own stories: certainly ever since Sigur Ros featured the wreck in their music doco Heima, people have been drawn to it. This broken husk of a machine somehow enhances the wild beauty of the Icelandic landscape. To me it says: the land is bigger than all of us, and it can claim us.

FINDING THE SOLHEIMASANDUR PLANE WRECK

Until recently, you could drive right up to the plane. This year vehicles were banned due to the increasing number of visitors who were using the land for a bit of an off-road joyride. The folks who own this land are farmers, and they want people to have access to the plane, but they can’t afford to be fixing damages. (See, people, this is why you can’t have nice things.) Now, one must go by foot, some 50 minutes from the access point. Personally, I’m glad that you have to walk there. Something like this calls for a little dedication.

Directions: Driving eastward along the south coast, you want to pay attention after leaving Vik. Once you pass the Skogafoss waterfall on your left, start looking out for a bridge with blinking yellow lights, then a road leading to the glacier. Carry on for about 1 mile (if you reach another bridge you’ve gone too far), until you see a large gate on your right. And seemingly nothing beyond it. This is where you begin.

Once you’ve found the access point, head towards the horizon. Keep in mind that over the years a lot of travellers have lost their way, got stranded, and a surprising number have had to be rescued. So if you’re going at an unsociable hour, or in bleak weather, I’d definitely take along some form of GPS with co-ordinates. There are no landmarks out there.

The day my brother and I went was clear and sunny, as perfect conditions as you could ask for – but even on the best of days the land can play tricks on you. The horizon was a hazy mirage that not only made it look like people far ahead were walking into the ocean, but it was impossible to gauge distance. For almost an hour, it felt like we were walking into nothing. A road to nowhere.

Then suddenly, the land dipped – and there she was.

Once I was done having a moment (“we’re actually here!”), Chris and I approached the wreck, taking in the decay of the metal body, the gnarled bullet holes and initials – old and new – scratched into the interior. There were a few people padding around the plane trying to capture it, so we took ourselves off for a picnic against a boulder: tomato sandwiches with lashings of salty Icelandic butter. This is the great thing about having to walk to the plane – everyone who was there had made time. We’d all committed to it. We were not in any hurry.

Shortly after – before we’d even constructed a second sandwich – the other people left, and my brother and I were alone with the Sólheimasandur plane. I hadn’t expected to get the place to ourselves. That was special, if not a little eerie, being the only ones there.

Eventually some fluorescent specks of visitors appeared over the rise, so we gave Sólheimasandur’s ghost one last glance before setting off on the long walk back to the car. Within a couple of minutes a worried-looking woman came towards us, pleading: “Is this the right way to the plane? Is it far? I cannot see it!” A few steps more, we explained, and she would see it. The land, like I said, will play tricks on you. So don’t worry; if you’re seeking something mysterious, it’s there, for those willing to find it.

 

(Most photos by Chris Nelson – please do not use without permission. Thanks for the epic pics, bro.)

Funny, isn’t it, the things you get self-conscious about. My whole life I quietly resented the quirks of my features – my nose, my teeth, the usual things people fret over, worrying how they look to the rest of the world, despite the fact that all anyone else thinks is that it’s just your FACE. I’m now older and wiser enough to realise that not only does nobody else care, but those quirks are a part of me, and I’m the one who turned them into hang-ups. Nobody’s remarked on them, they’ve never stopped the suitors and at the end of the day, they’re a part of who I am. This is the packaging, baby, I own it. And yet, there I am, on a Monday night, with some stranger on Instagram criticising my feet.

MY FEET!

I laughed – because my feet are not, and have never been, a player in my game of hang-ups. And then I thought, what have we come to, when one’s feet are taken to task for not being… Wait, what are feet supposed to be, exactly? Supermodel thin? Glossy? (Seriously, should be my feet be glossy?) Should I have a toe gap? I don’t even know what the airbrushed ideal for feet is, but anyway… what is the world coming to?

“Ugly foot… bloated” remarked some bored teenage girl. (In Italian, but no less rude.)

Now, first of all, I have a chronic injury in my right foot – there’s me doing a half marathon in cheap joggers, that’ll learn me (kids, stay in school, don’t do drugs, and WEAR QUALITY RUNNING SHOES) – which means it’s now very slightly puffier than my left. It’s been that way for years and it doesn’t stop me doing things. Even though every day of my life it hums with a dull ache and on a hot day, or on the odd occasion I’ve worn high heels, that thing will swell up like a watermelon. Don’t get me started about what happens when I fly long-haul – it reaches such epic proportions that one time when I showed it to an air hostess she gasped and hid in the galley. (When this happens I refer to it as Footzilla).

In the photo that drew a scathing remark, my foot was as good as it gets. Trust me, Insta-critic, you ain’t seen nothing! And let’s not overlook the fact that in this picture I was having breakfast in bed in Paris and indeed had A WHOLE ENTIRE BAG OF CROISSANTS, so if all you can see when you look at it is a slightly puffy foot, then young lady, your life is a dark and dreary place and may I never have to go there. (Have you ever had a whole bag of croissants to yourself, in bed, in Paris? Nah, I didn’t think so.)

Feet are funny. I know some people have a deep fear and loathing of them – I once lived with a grown-man flatmate who would have to leave the room if I wore toe-socks. (They’re socks that have little sections for each toe, like gloves. They are slightly creepy, but they are also very snug). And there are many others who think feet are wonderful. (I’ve known an actual foot fetishist. And for what it’s worth, I never got no complaints about my tootsies.) But wherever you stand on the matter, feet are hardly deserving of scorn for not being attractive enough. Right? Or is this like when Demi Moore got cosmetic surgery on her knees and suddenly women panicked because they hadn’t been considering their knees aesthetically, and were now lying awake wondering if theirs weren’t noticeably droopier than yesterday?…

Is foot beauty a thing now?

Of course a little grooming is good, but at the end of the day I’ve always put feet in the zone of just being… feet. They’re totally amazing! Mine have taken me to some pretty incredible places. And I take far more footsies than I ever do selfies (my stepdad often remarks that my feet have been more places than I have). They even got me through that half marathon, despite what I put the buggers through. I jog-limped crossed that finish line with gusto.

So thank you, feet, for being fabulous and strong and getting me through years of stubbornly wearing flip-flops in winter and insisting on wearing uncomfortable heels for Nice Occasions. For pedalling me from London to Paris and getting me up Helvellyn and supporting me on the dancefloor even when you wanted me to sit the hell down now, for the love of god. For helping me push doors open when I’ve got arms full of shopping and for being big enough to keep my 5ft9 body from falling over every single time it’s upright. You’re really bloody awesome, even when you hurt, and, for the most part, even when you (yeah, I’m looking at you, right foot) turn into Footzilla and frighten airline crew. I don’t like the injury but I do love my feet, and like those other quirks I learned to accept, my big foot is as much a part of me too.

And to Miss No-Manners of Instagram… my bigger foot is all the better for kicking your arse with. You better run, kid.
(Wear good trainers though.)

Considering my interest in food (preoccupation, some might say), there will always arise the question of what I don’t like. And for a long time my answer would elicit surprise. COFFEE. I couldn’t stand it. It was the only thing I detested, the last hurdle of flavour that I’d yet to conquer; I’d sooner stuff my gullet with offal than take even a sip of a coffee. Not that I didn’t try it – I did, many times, hoping I’d eventually tap into some hidden magic. I didn’t. The taste remained revolting. Naturally, many people told me I would grow into it.

“Try a macchiato!” they said,
“It’s like a hot chocolate!” they said,
“It doesn’t even taste like coffee!” they said.

ALL LIES. No sweetness could mask the vileness of the nasty bean. Even coffee ice cream or cappuccino cake were firmly off-limits. Taking a chocolate from a selection box without a menu meant the risk of getting a coffee cream, like confectionary Russian roulette. (Getting it wrong was mouth death.) But believe me, this was not how I wanted to live. I wanted to enjoy coffee, and understand what all the fuss was about. In a world full of flavour sensations, to dislike something as vehemently as I did coffee, well… it felt like failure. Plus, there were the social elements. When people say, “let’s go for coffee”, of course this includes tea, but deep down it felt like being in a sub-class of hot beverage drinker. A pat on the head: “There, there, you get yerself a wee tea. Poor you with your unrefined palate.” Then there’s the variety. If you’re a tea drinker in a café you get, at best, leaves in a pot. At worst, you get a bag in a cup. That’s more or less your lot, and although I explored the world of tea with as much love and loyalty as I could, celebrating independent loose leaf producers and wiling away hours in the Twinings shop, ordering tea out was limited. (The sign that a cafe gives a damn is that it offers lemon with your earl grey; these are surprisingly rare.)

Coffee, on the other hand, is like a respected member’s club, with its own secret handshakes and special code. Decaf? Latte? Pour-over? Roast? Drip? Espresso? Double shot? Americano? It was a fascinating world, but one that I was destined never to know. Turns out I was wrong. Exactly one year ago, something changed. I was in Iceland, of all places, doing a food story, and the photographer was shooting early morning coffees at Reykjavik Roasters. My bleary eyes honed in on the frothy latte left there on the table. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was because I was tired, maybe the eerie Icelandic atmosphere had an otherworldly effect on me. But I had a sip. And I didn’t hate it. Panicked that this spell would wear off, I took another sip. Then another. And then another – and oh, wait, there we are. BLEEUUURGH! Yes, I still hated coffee, but for the next three months I couldn’t stop thinking about those first few illicit sips. So began my slow dalliance with coffee.

Now, I love it. And a whole new world has opened up. I get to say things like “arabica” and “ristretto” and “don’t even TALK to me until I’ve had my coffee”. Everything is a novelty and as such, I’ve continually taken pictures of my coffees, to the chagrin of every Instagrammer sick of seeing yet another arty latte shot with a Valencia filter. But it’s been fun. Here I’ve shared a few excerpts of my conversion to coffee. My caffeinated diary.

2 Feb 2014: Reykjavik Roasters coffeehouse. The latte that changed everything.

29 Apr: Today, for the first time, ordered a coffee. Drank a quarter of it before my mouth cried.

1 May: Colleague made me an iced coffee. Not convinced. Had to put a bucket of ice cream in it.

1 Jun: Proud kiwi moment – my first flat white. Even finished it. Getting easier.

5 Jun: Deadline week – offered to do the coffee run. Mine is the tiny one. Baby steps.

1 Jul: I LOVE ICED COFFEE. Esp this one with dark chocolate sorbet in it. (Cheating?)

25 Jul: Easily swayed. Thinking I might have an iced coffee problem.

16 Aug: Terrible cappuccino in Soho. Realised bad coffee is a new, and very real, life risk.

23 Aug: Saturday latte at L’Eau a la Bouche. Look around at people and think, “I am one of you now”.

25 Aug: I AM ON THE TRAIN. Grabbed my first Caffe Nero. Passionless.

28 Aug: After years mooching in Borough Market, had my first Monmouth coffee. Was worth the wait.

29 Aug: Coconut-oil-infused Bulletproof coffee could be my new favourite thing of all time…

1 Sep: Can’t sleep at night. Someone suggested decaf. Not ready to admit defeat.

4 Sep: Love Bulletproofs but the caffeine high lasts HOURS. (Plus side: getting lots done.)

6 Sep: Try my first black Americano at the Finch Cafe. Had to add milk. Lots and lots of milk.

10 Sep: Have my first espresso AFTER DINNER. Had to add sugar. Lots and lots of sugar.
Also: I am never sleeping again.

22 Sep: First time in Italy as a coffee drinker. Belissimo latte in Tuscany. Heart the Italians.

 
25 Sep: In Florence. Iced coffee is different here. Wasn’t prepared. Sad face.

23 Oct: Have given in and accepted decaf as my friend because I miss sleeping.

1 Nov: Coffee at home now! Had to Google “How to make coffee in a stovetop percolator”.

9 Nov: NYC bound. Paced airport looking for decent coffee place. Think have become snob.

11 Nov: Tried Starbucks in NYC as I needed wifi. People drink this stuff? Had name spelled ‘Glen’.

29 Nov: Love finding independent coffee places around London. Confess: am stuck on lattes.

4 Jan 2015: Friend introduced me to filter coffee. Not just diner fodder! God. Still much to learn.

28 Jan: One year on and I love coffee. Might never sleep again. Thankfully coffee is both the cause of this problem, and the solution.

 

Comedy and death seem so terribly contrary and yet are so inextricably linked, that last week when I heard Rik Mayall had died, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What do you MEAN Rik Mayall’s dead? *snort* As IF.

It was a joke! And you fell for it… like the facist you are!

Except it wasn’t. And he IS. And I felt so terribly sad about it all. But it wasn’t just me being all girly – people everywhere were sharing real and virtual hugs over it, mourning somebody who had made us all make strangled bear noises because we were laughing so hard. God he was funny. The explosive energy, the conscientious chaos, the intelligent insults and sheer ridiculousness. Sometimes I thought he crossed the line of lewdness, yet I found I would still honk with laughter.

I suppose it feels like bidding adieu to a teenage chum. Because a vast chunk of my formative high school years were invested in watching The Young Ones – so much so that my friend Maria and I knew all the episodes by heart. We’d scribble our favourite lines in notes to each other in class. We’d shout “Piss off you girl!” or “Hands up who likes me!”. We – weirdly – listened to Madness songs and would snigger about cornflakes and lentils. We even adopted personas: Maria was Rick; I wanted to be Vyvyan – but was usually Neil, mostly because I was a people-pleaser who wore flares. (Bor-ring!)

Before all of that there was Drop Dead Fred – I was only about 10 but, in spite of all the snotting, I had a very real crush on Fred’s enthusiasm, big eyes, and incorrigible loyalty. And let’s face it – there’s nothing quite as fanciable as a man who can make you laugh like a drain.

Anyway. Look. I wasn’t going to do a tribute post. PA-THET-IC. Every Rik Mayall fan has their own personal stories to tell and top comedy moments to share. We could all go on and on about it and I’m sure we’d never not have something to say.

But today it was Rik’s funeral and I wanted to pay my respects. And I want to do it with poetry. Rik’s poetry. Because those really were some of my favourite bits.

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1. BOMBS!
These days Maria are linked only via the loose virtual thread of Facebook. But she and I used to recite this so bloody often, that the day Rik died we unhesitatingly took turns to recite it line by line on her Facebook page.

2. ARE YOU, CLIFF?
From the very first episode. This was my all-time favourite Young Ones poem, partly because I grew up a dedicated Cliff Richard fan and this gave me licence to admit it… But mostly because it’s actually a bloody excellent poem.

3. BUT I DON’T KNOW VANESSA REDGRAVE!
What I love about this stand-up bit, from his early comedy act with Ade Edmondson, is that is shows elements of what would become the Young Ones’ Rick, but he’s somehow even more hilarious. I never stop shrieking with laughter watching this.

Thanks Rik, for being such a hilarious bastard. x