Recovery at Emma's continues, gradually.
The days and evenings are delightful.
Yesterday was rainy and cool. Emma and Colin worked, and I... am not sure exactly what I did. Read Angela Findlay's book. Iced. Looked out the windows at the partridges and pheasants that take refuge here, away from neighborhood shooting. The leaves are beginning to turn now, with the woods' edge turning golden. Fall gardens are still flourishing; dahlias leaning heavily on their stems, late roses falling off their bright red hips, lavender showing off a few last blooms, big white anemones nodding in the breeze. A lovely time, unless you are a game bird.
The evening before last we went to a book talk at the Yard, a nearby cafe and venue. Both authors are journalists, had written about birds from very different perspectives. Charlie Corbett's "12 Birds to Save Your Life" follows his year-long journey through losing his mom to brain cancer bird by bird, month by month. He was charming and very relatable. Patrick Galbraith, a prodigious talent as the 30-year-old editor of Shooting Times, wrote "In Search of One Last Song: Britain's Disappearing Birds and the People Trying to Save Them." Deeply researched, based on countless interview hours with game managers, thatchers, ornithologists, fishermen and others, the book and its author speaks eloquently about the birds that most don't recognize, let alone miss as they disappear. Both authors came to the same conclusion; we must listen. To the birds and to each other. We are missing a lot by not listening.
Amen to that.
Yesterday evening, Emma and I went to see "Ticket to Paradise" in a sweet and cushy cinema in Winchester. Frothy and sweet, it was a nice diversion for a late afternoon. Velvet loveseats with cushions, wine and excellent nibbles. A far cry from the Camino.
This afternoon, Emma and I picked up her dear lifelong friend, Kitty, for a fun bit of retail therapy. A drive through half-timbered villages, some homes still with deeply thatched roofs, took us to a designer clothing sample sale. I found a wonderful, warm garment that beggars description. (If I am able to resume my Camino, there's a big box heading out from England with my England-wear.)
Lunch was at the Whitcomb Silk Mill. It's an 18th century Silk mill that is still in operation. It sits on an island in the middle of a chalk stream. Chalk streams are common in Hampshire, where water bubbles up through chalk and gravel in crystal-clear, shallow streams. Of the fewer than 300 in the world, England has 85%, and Hampshire the majority. Arlesford, the town closest to Emma and Colin, is bisected by the Arle. It and the Candover Brook run within a half-mile into the River Itchen. For this stream-lover, Hampshire, with its shallow, clear, wadeable chalk streams, is a Heaven kind of place.
The region's towns and villages here are threaded with these trout-filled streams. Some say that Hampshire will fare better than other places in England if clean water becomes scarce.
We stopped at a clever local veggie source on the way back. A horse trailer kitted out as a mobile farm stand. Bins contain garlic, squash, potatoes, kohlrabi and fennel. Buckets of chard. All on the honor system. Buyers pick up what they want, and pay by app online or into a locked cash box anchored to the counter.
Now I'm cuddled into a sofa next to the fire, forbidden from cooking. This weekend, however, I will be allowed to make something for my sweet friends and Wilf, their son who will be home from boarding school on Sunday. Gonna go all Barefoot Contessa on these worthy people.
Doesn't Jenny the Lakie look like a toy?
As for the leg, ugh. Wait and see.
The phrase I was searching for was capsule wardrobe!