Even mountains erode
Week 14, 2026
The sun decided to come out to play a bit recently, and everyone was alive again. You could feel it on the streets, walking around with Luba, drinking iced coffees, deciding whether to cause trouble and, if so, how much. People huddled in the tiny slices of pavement outside pubs that still had sunshine after 4 pm.
Last year, I was living opposite Victoria Park, and I would cycle a lap around it before peeling off to go to my office or the lido. I don’t have that this year and I miss it. The blossom trees in Vicky Park are INCREDIBLE but like most good things in life, very fleeting. Procrastinate and you’ll miss them.
When me and Meryl lived on the street I now live on again, we used to get up and go for a walk around the marshes. I can’t muster up the energy required to do this solo, maybe I was just in it for the yapping. But maybe I should get back to it. Few things in life are as fun as stomping around, headphones on, feeling misunderstood.
Things feel like they’re in flux again. January and February were rhythmic. And I feel a little bit like I spent 7 weeks carefully organising some drawers, only to scatter the contents around the room again. You know?
But the good thing is the metaphorical drawers still exist and fingers crossed it won’t take much to get them all packed away again. Although isn’t it ANNOYING how much of life is just gritting your teeth, digging in the dirt, waiting for stuff to get good?
My sister Roz was back from Canada for a few weeks, too. On her last night, she got this spectacularly awful food poisoning, and we were both running around in the middle of the night, dumbfounded, loading up the washing machine, spongeing at the carpet. I couldn’t look at her for a full hour as I grieved the loss of some of my expensive bedding. Obviously, we laughed about it later. A good lesson for life actually: what is painful now will always be an inside joke later.
Easter weekend always reminds me of this time I came home from London for Easter - years ago now - and over the course of the weekend I went completely off my then boyfriend. Like a switch flipped somewhere between the easter egg hunt and the lamb roast. And he felt it, too! Cosmic waves. Our intuition is always correct.
I quite like this memory because it reminds me of how powerful our brains are. And how often we get it wrong! And nothing is permanent. And one day you’re worrying about a future with a guy who has admitted he never wants kids (don’t worry he’s got 2 now) and the next, you’re booking flights to Lisbon thinking PHEW close call. Mountains erode, things can change.
Sometimes I mourn all the time I’ve spent with boyfriends, and then I open my phone to go on Hinge in search of another.
Sometimes I cycle an extra 15 minutes just so I can avoid a particular stretch of road I have decided I don’t like.
Sometimes I make a packed lunch for work that I know I won’t want, just to test my commitment to eating lunch.
This Easter weekend, I have loads of nice plans and some space for fun and some space for snoozing, and I reckon it’s gonna be good. I don’t even mind that the weather looks bad, so I can watch telly for a bit guilt-free, or finally wade my way through the book I started that I initially loved but suddenly found to be quite challenging.
The author uses the protagonist to explore some really important topics - gentrification, immigration, belonging - but sometimes I just wanna be like SKIP TO THE SEXY BIT. I’m sure this means I am a bad person, or uncultured, but god forbid a woman just wants to read the sexy bit.
Speaking of #culture, I watched Project Hail Mary last week and urge anyone with a free 2h coming up to do the same. It was my favourite book ever ever when I read it, in fact in an uncharacteristically generous move, I ordered some copies to send to people to force them to read it. It made me realise how much I lap up anything about unconventional relationships, and how much I love Sci Fi, and how REFRESHING it is to watch a Sci Fi movie that isn’t really dark and intense? Just a fruity little astronaut and his extraterrestrial companion. Delish.
Before we watched it, Annie and I discussed how eating a large popcorn makes you feel empty inside once it’s over. And I agreed, and then I did it anyway. And actually, I didn’t feel too bad that time; in fact, I felt pretty good.
wow
What's the book?! 🌸🌼