0.22 The Ind. Est. Loop
Spring, silly little mental health walks, Really Good Reads™ and what I've been cooking lately.
HELLO BST! Can I shock you? I didn’t hate late term GMT this year. The one good thing to come out of winter is spring, and the most recent December was H.A.R.D (too dark, too wet, too little money, too much global catastrophe, not enough festive spirit) so I was mainly thrilled to see the back of it. The little blue sky teases we’ve had since have been welcome, but I’m giving the weather two weeks to pull itself together so I can get the candles / jazz playlist / comfy cooking vibes out of my system before we launch ourselves fully into S.P.R.I.N.G (I’m kidding, I just transition into a slightly jauntier jazz playlist, swap out the sexy bonfire candles for “smells like the garden centre at noon” candles and a slightly brighter wine whilst keeping the comfy cooking in place - I’m 37, I like what I like.)
It’s only since getting into nature as a concept, really falling deeply for flora and fauna and noticing the gentle delay of dusk each week partnered with marvelling as the crocus push their tarty little heads up did I realise why I felt sad for half of the year. I am, at heart, a bear, or at the very least a hedgehog, who should spend the arse end of the year getting chubbier and comfier than ever, not leaving my nest until nature’s own colour palette is back up and popping. Alas, capitalism!
When the world stopped and my local swimming pool closed, I had to find something to do to keep my brain and body ticking over, so I used my state mandated one (1) hour of exercise a day to walk around my local industrial estate. Friends did (and still do!) fear for my mental health when I say “I’m off on my ind. est. loop,” but in all honesty that little circuit with cherry blossom and shasta daisies and foxgloves keeps me sane. It’s been one of life’s biggest kicks in the dick to find out that exercise simply…works? Even the days where you feel like you need to rat around your little foxes den without being perceived by anyone are made better by a half hour walk, a ten minute stretch and, at a push, a little frolic with a kettlebell. As ever, I’ve come to the realisation eons behind everyone else, but moving your body for how it makes you feel rather than how it might eventually make you look is actually a really nice thing to do.
Got a problem? Go for a walk. The plodding and fresh air will almost certainly reveal the answer to you. Feel anxious? Go for a walk – endorphins? Stunning! Feel tired? You’re not going to believe this – go for a walk. Putting something off? You’re absolutely right you’re going to go for a walk first, hop to the insurmountable task after because a after a little strut about the borough you ‘ll feel like you can take on the world. Very sorry to say but if I’ve been putting off replying to someone for such a length of time that I’m suddenly in my own head about it, I can usually only gear myself up to reply by getting some steps in first. It’s not ideal, but it works! Take a walk, imagine the very best possible life, or even just the very best day for yourself, and then immediately tackle anything that’s standing in the way of that (I write all of this from the point of view of someone who does not have any caregiving responsibilities, quite clearly, but wanted to acknowledge that either way!) That’s the power of a walk!
And now the lighter nights are coming and the evening breeze is easing, I will be back stomping the same circular route every night, watching the steps tick over on my FitBit, charting the progress of the massive cherry blossom tree half way around, which, if you time it right, you can catch the sun disappearing behind, almost desperate to hang on and marvel at the blooms with me.
So if you follow my Instagram please don’t be surprised to see a torrent of stories at 7.30 each evening of the same tarty cherry blossoms, but please do not try and join me because despite my pal finally relenting that it wasn’t the depressing loop of doom it sounds like, and that I “simply have a marketing / branding issue” here, I thrive on the fact that I can flounce about anonymously, digesting my day.
Really Good Reads™
Until two weeks ago I’d never heard of the Barkley Marathons and now - I’m utterly obsessed. I refreshed twitter every 8 seconds in the closing minutes of Jasmin Paris final lap willing her to make it, and make it she did! The first ever woman to complete the five laps and only the 2oth finisher full stop since 1989 - what a feat! What a hero! And reading more about the event - what an utterly batshit little concept?! The conch shell horn? The hidden books? The £1.27 entrance fee? Very sorry to say if I ever get into ultra running you can expect these sorts of concepts from me!
This is ticking all my boxes - theatrical, silly, nice, mildly competitive.
If, like me, you have felt like you’ve been going slightly insane over the massive shift the country seems to have gone through over the last decade, this piece sums up our death by a thousand cuts perfectly. It does sort of gloss over austerity, as something that just happened to us rather than was inflicted on us as a result of those better off wanting someone to pay for the financial crash, and it always being those worse off rather than those in charge, but I guess that’s a whole other long piece waiting to be written!
I feel extremely weird about old churches being converted into houses despite spending a lot of my drinking days in a BAR that used to be a chapel, and would regularly say “is it time for church?” whilst steepling my hands come 11pm on a Saturday night. I do draw the line at living in one though, apparently! I feel like they can never really shake the feeling of being a third space, probably because that’s what they were designed as. This place is no different, with the living room having the feeling of a local arts centre rather than where you’d settle down to watch some Netflix, but that kitchen?! Oh man. I cannot stop thinking about that kitchen! I’d trade it all for a six month tenancy of just padding about that green fever dream.
Whatever the topic, there’s a David Sedaris essay for that.
Things I’ve Cooked Lately
The meat eaters I live with LOVED this, and I’ve had that mayo with pretty much everything this week. I cooked the Borek and the dip from here for a gathering last week, both of which slapped. I accidentally left the anchovy out of the greens and bean gratin here but it was still spectacular! Pretty much everything else we eat at the moment comes from here.
And that’s me, happy first day of the County Cricket season to those who celebrate, and merry Spring to the rest of you!
Thanks for reading, N xo