Five Things to do on a Stormy Day

Have a lie in. No bright sunshine peeking through the curtains, demanding your attention, reminding you to make the most of the sun while it’s here, to get out on your bike, or go plan a picnic. Just nestle down in that duvet and enjoy the fact that the day won’t go and be all glorious without you.

Open the window wide. You might not want to be out in it, but it’s nice to get a face-full of it. Cold wind on your cheeks and rain on pavement, and you still cosy in your PJs. Thunderstorms are especially good for this.

Bake gingerbread. No more light fairy cakes, or strawberries and meringue. This is weather for cake that sticks to your ribs. I use the same recipe as my mum and grama, from the same book with the red gingham cover. It calls for that beautiful red and gold tin of black treacle on the top shelf, with its sticky lid and hint of Christmas. Yum.

Splash in the puddles. No day is bad enough to warrant staying indoors (unless you want to of course, and then I can come up with some very good reasons to do just that). Tom and I got caught on a flooded path round Newtown the other day and had no choice but to run right through it. Shin-deep in water, kicking up the spray, our whoops and shrieks carried over the water. We squelched around the rest of our run and embraced our sogginess.

Make luxury hot chocolate. Mini marshmallows are a stock cupboard staple at this time of year. Make up a batch of this hot chocolate, and curl up on the couch. Light a fire and have a nap. And stuff newspapers in those soaking wet trainers; you might want them again for that rainy run tomorrow.

Normal Service Resumes

My high-speed ferry commute is so easy, zipping me back and forth from Cowes on my daily commute. I take it for granted, until it’s gone. Red Funnel has had a busy fortnight, ferrying so many passengers across the Solent with one boat down. So, I’ve seen less of home these last couple weeks. I’ve missed the sea, the golden light, and the easy-going Islanders.

Even with a ferry service under intense demand, I’ve been charmed by the ever-cheery faces of the staff, and the unruffled Very British Queuing as we all wait for the boat. I’ve been on the slower car ferry more often than usual. The one hour crossing turns out to be the perfect amount of time to finish a beer, knit 20 rows, and get through a whole Spotify playlist (thank you free ferry wifi!) I usually take the car ferry with my bike and always appreciate how they let the bikes go to the front of the queue (unlike other Isle of Wight ferry services, which shall remain nameless.) It makes a big difference to be the first passengers to pedal off on the other side, without having to sit in the belly of a boat and get gassed out by two floors of departing cars.

Absence always makes the heart grow fonder. I’ve enjoyed the evening light in Hampshire, but found myself thinking ‘Just imagine how beautiful it must look over Tennyson Down right now!’ So, with the Red Jet service now back to its complete set of fast catamarans, it was a sweet feeling to end my working day with a swift hop over the Solent, glimpsing the far west point of the Isle of Wight, before seeing the lights of Cowes appear out of the evening mist. It’s as sweet a sight as there ever were.

Books, Bikes, and Bread

There are so many good things that begin with the letter B: bacon sandwiches, beach walks and bumble bees, to name a few. Tom and I spent far too much time adding to this list, but there really are a lot of good B words! No matter the length of the list, the top three remain the same: books, bikes, and bread. What could be better than working up an appetite with a whizz around on your bike, followed by a slice of hot buttered toast and a good read?

We filled our weekend with all three, riding out to a photography exhibition at Dimbola Lodge, finishing off some recent reads, and baking a buttery banana bread. There are no photos of the banana bread.. it seemed far more important to simply dive in and eat it.

Do you have any B words to add to the list, or suggestions of another letter I have seriously overlooked?

Lovely Autumn Things

Ringing my bike bell and whizzing along in a mini skirt.

Seeing the lights of home peek through the fog on my boat ride home.

Finding the perfect tune for a rainy day.

Smelling coal fires and damp leaves.

Watching a single line of geese flying low over the sea.

Lighting the touch paper on the first fire of the season.

Splurging on a decadent pile of brand new books.

Baking new recipes with an obscene amount of chocolate and butter.

Amidst a very busy term, I’m finding lovely pieces of autumn all around me. Including these photos, pinched from Tom’s Instagram gallery.

The Shipping Forecast

The shipping forecast: great bastion of the BBC, firm rock in the ever-changing storm of radio content. I love Radio 4 for its variety, but I love the shipping forecast for its consistency. No matter if the seas are peaceful or raging, you can always rely on the stoic voice of the forecast reader. With steady rhythm, this poem of the everyday gives hints of distant unknown waters. Most of the places sound exotic and unknown (Cromarty, Lundy, Shannon). But I get a ridiculous pleasure from the thought that our island is a moniker worthy of a region in the forecast: Wight.

I couldn’t resist this print from the V&A and, after a year of sitting in its wrapper, finally had it framed by the lovely Shorelines in town. Tom brought this mug back for me from a summer trip to Wales. It is my firm favourite; perfectly proportioned and beautifully glazed. And of all 31 forecast regions to choose from, I was especially pleased to see that Wight made it on to the mug.

The shipping forecast has an audience of hundreds of thousands, well beyond the seafarers who rely on its information, its reaches to bedside radios across the land as people drift off on distant waves. (And for those of you who prefer to drift off to music, this is the perfect shipping tune from the talented King Creosote).