The Friday 5 #166
Surfacing slowly, eating frugally and a cookbook giveaway to help you do it.
I must admit I’ve enjoyed this week, feeling not - as I sometimes do - anti-climatic after Christmas but relapsing into a strange, semi-restful limbo. Busy but not busy, the new year not having properly started and having no inclination to to tell it to get a move on.
I haven’t been to London. I haven’t arranged to see friends unless they’ve contacted me, simply slipped into a solitary routine, playing catch-up before I go away next week,
Eating, as I resolved to do, out of the store cupboard, fridge and freezer. (Apart from a batch of marmalade.)
Trying not to drink all the burgundy I’ve been opening which we’ll talk about on Sunday. (The wine, not my attempts to resist it.)
Reading. I’ve nearly finished Look Closer which has felt like being back at school only with a much more inspiring guide than the English teacher when I was doing my A levels.
Monitoring my steps on my new Fitbit. Unlike me but I’m anticipating a good bit of walking while I’m away
Snoozing on the sofa. The sheer bliss of an afternoon nap . . .
and gazing at daffodils which I bought as tightly packed buds yesterday and are blossoming next to me as I write.
And then there’s Vietnam and the apprehension I always feel about going away. I thought it was just me but chatting to a friend who is also a well seasoned traveller I found she feels it too.
I suspect it comes down to the unspoken dread that this is it. That something will happen and I might never make it home. Which sounds absurdly melodramatic but not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Do any of you feel that too when you go on a long haul trip?
More practically I’m in the usual state of indecision about what to pack. There are huge differences in temperature between Hanoi where we arrive - and which looks like typical British early spring weather - and Ho Chi Minh City which seems more like the Med in high summer. Then Siem Reap in Cambodia and Luang Prabang in Laos which are somewhere in between … Tricky.
Anyway none of this counts as the Friday 5 which includes this month’s fabulous cookbook giveaway (above). LIke the Burgundy tasting it’s only available to paid subscribers. But it’s a good moment to sign up . . .