Took a week off work, as we’ve spent the majority of the year inside, working for The Man. I did attend one work-related thing, a webinar on Open Banking and other open innovation opportunities, but for most of the week I just did what I wanted.

So here’s some notes of joy from my week off. Mostly about food, to be honest.

Not-work stuff

I gathered fronds of gutweed – a common seaweed – and gobbled it up.

A silky Caesar salad, minus the chicken, was just enough for dinner on Tuesday.

After finishing Mona Lisa Overdrive and needing a break from cyberspace, I started reading Raymond Williams’s Border Country, a story about class, social mobility, and a London academic moving back to live in rural Wales. It’s delightfully pastoral.

The fish shop had mussels, so lunch on Wednesday was moules marinière.

We went swimming in the sea and two dolphins crested the waves in front of us. Then we drank red wine as the sun set on the beach. And, back home, we ate Buffalo wings sloppily.

In Thursday’s scorching heat, we went walking near Nant Gwrtheryn. Down a steep valley beneath Yr Eifl to a pebbled beach with cool, azure sea. We then traipsed back to the car up a steep-sided hill, through an ancient oak woodland called Gallt y Bwlch, where I saw a gnarled oak. There was still some wild garlic clinging to the mountain stream, which we collected for dinner (barbecued mackerel).

And the rest of the week we just chilled. :)

Bookmarks