I have never been to an airport so early in my life as when I was gleefully (and somewhat desperately?) leaving Lisbon. I was the second person in line to check in/check my bag and while we all waited for the ticket counter to become staffed (yes it was that early) I ate a complete lunch in line. Nothing like this has ever previously transpired in my entire history of airport arrivals. I could not wait to get the fuck out of there.
London yields same impressions, but we love big dogs
I flew into London and did a few-day sit with an Australian Shepherd beauty named Moody until it was time to make my way westward to Bath again. Moody was a smart and glorious beast and would play fetch with her toy (not a ball because she destroys them) until she showed a limp (that’s the cue to quit, her owners told me). (I heard from a friend who trains dogs that I shouldn’t be running dogs until they limp, so let me clarify: I am not a dog abuser! This dog had so much energy she would have played until she for real died, so her owners told me to watch for the first sign of a limp and to use that as a playtime limiter. I am not talking about a full-on injury limp—that would be insane.) We mostly spent time in the nearby park (Highbury Fields) but also enjoyed a romantic evening on the couch together watching Love on the Spectrum. London continued to be a meh (although not as much of a meh as Lisbon, my god!), although there were some highlights. I saw some dudes playing frisbee in the park (first regulation size disc sighting of the trip; yes I briefly played ultimate in college and in an adult league afterwards), went over and introduced myself, then popped the dog indoors and went back out to toss with them until it was dark. Another highlight was visiting Word on the Water, a bookstore on a barge with very friendly staff. I even saw one of the books my former upstairs neighbor in Providence wrote and illustrated on there! Super random, and when you run into your friend’s book in real life it kind of feels like you ran into the person herself.
Back to Bath
My bus ride to Bath was delightfully uneventful and I overlapped with my (Trusted Housesitters) host for a couple days before she went traveling and I looked after Bonnie (affectionately Bon-Bon) for a week and a half. My location in Bath this time around (Larkhall) was much more walkable (still outside of town but either a great walk via the canal or a straight shot into the city along London Road) and I think I rode the bus once. I did always carry an umbrella and my shoes were frequently wet (I will procure some waterproof leather boots for next time) but it was easier to explore overall. Alas, I didn’t go back to the almost-shat-my-pants gym because it was logistically inconvenient and the leisure center (pronounced leh-zhur) was closer.
The morning routine was taking Bon-Bon for a long-ass walk through a series of connected fields (hello again, kissing gate) and a little bit of woodland. There was a section of woods that was littered with tiny apples and overall the smell of apples was in the air—delicious, très fall. The place I stayed had a mini orchard in the backyard so there was an endless supply of fresh apples and the host told me all the neighbors had had the apples pressed into juice (think hybrid of juice and cider in terms of clarity and viscosity) and that I was welcome to drink as much as I wanted (I did indulge). I was all hopped up on apple cider/juice, reveling in the crisp fall air and enjoying wearing jackets, including a new cute pink one that I spotted at a charity shop and couldn’t resist (if it says petite and it fits there’s at 50%+ chance I’m scooping it).
Bonnie was a real delight—true, she had limited recall (a real 50/50) and did not understand the bringing the ball back part of fetch, but she was very sweet-natured and playful, and got along with every single dog and person who had the enthusiasm bandwidth for her. One morning walk we met another dog about the same size (Dimples, see gray dog in pics) in the middle of a field and they got along so well with that the other dog’s owner offered to take everyone on a dog date field trip later in the week. She drove us to a spot with a network of bigger fields and open countryside and the dogs tired themselves out. That night, Bonnie passed out on the couch so hard that I had to pause a few seconds to make sure she was breathing and not actually dead (confirmed alive). Also, this is mundane (shocker) but I encountered a type of clothes dryer (condenser tumble dryer) where with use, a tank at the top of the machine fills up with water and you have to empty it in order for the machine to work properly. Clearly I found this out because I had to figure out why I couldn’t get the dryer to run long enough to actually dry my clothes. Thank you, YouTube.
My time in Bath fortuitously lined up with a trip my friends from Austin who recently moved to the East Coast were taking there, so we all met up, took Bon-Bon for a nice evening walk and then went out to dinner at a fun local pub (The Raven), where I finally tried a meat pie (#pieandmash). As a result there may or may not be (there is) a copy of The Ultimate Butt in the third floor library at The Raven, tucked next to a work of Shakespeare.
The way I explain the vibe of the UK (the parts that I saw anyway) is a good balance of wildness and order. The wildness is expressed in productive ways like gardening (although to be fair also in ways I consider unproductive like excessive drinking) and the order is felt through transport that works, respectful interpersonal interactions and an overall tidiness of person and place. Despite being cast as some sort of feral creative, I am much closer to this contained wildness vibe than I think many people realize. I love spreadsheets, I like when things are dependable and function so that I can focus on freedom of thought and not the nuts and bolts of daily life and I am extremely organized. And we all know I love to garden.
When will I return to the UK again?
Next summer, duh, if not sooner. The visa (for US passports) is generous and easy, I have many more places to peek over there, flights from Boston are a breeze and I get to see my family in the northeast on the way to and from. Speaking of, I did indeed fly back into Boston and spent a few days with my parents, brothers, sister in law, niece and nephew and the pets. We logged a lot of woods walking, a little bit of Halloween crafting and lots of snacks and candy. The New England foliage was out of control; I kept interrupting my sister in law in the car to point to a tree and insist that she also acknowledge its overwhelming beauty before returning to what she was saying. I leaf peeped real hard.
USA re-entry observations
1. Americans are fat
2. Everyone drives like an idiot (but not my sister in law)
These were the loudest jump-out-at-you thoughts I had upon my return.
A related aside: There are no more passport stamps; it’s all biometric/digital now. I don’t know if that’s for everyone or just for Global Entry (recommend if you have a patience problem like moi) but it’s at once efficient and a little sad. Apparently you can ask an immigration officer for a stamp if you are really nostalgic; I will definitely be doing that going forward.
What travel optimization rabbit hole am I down now?
What’s the best hardshell travel luggage and is luggage with skateboard wheels a ruse or is there actually something to it? Taking recommendations; my current sometimes-carryon sometimes-checked roller has been on the road for 10 years and is showing its age (particularly in the wheels). I have my eye on hardshell for better weather resistance (hello, UK) and easier cleaning, but if hardshell sucks I do want to know that. If you have luggage you love (with beefy wheels) please share. If you have luggage you thought you would love but ended up hating, please also share.
Where is Val Sandiego?
You guys, I’m back in Austin to overwinter. I’ve been staying with friends and have been fully absorbed into their family life: I’m being cooked for, we planted their fall garden, everyone knows how to play Hues and Cues now (I must thank Uncle Greg for gifting it to me a couple years ago), I was a mime for Halloween again (and didn’t speak the whole night, as is the custom) and in a surprising move I went to a double-birthday karaoke party (November Rain) until 3am while the rest of the world saved daylight. Of course I have hit up Barton, rejoined the gym and visited Central Market (my places of worship). Other than that I'm piecing together more TH pet sits until I feel like finding a more permanent spot and turning the car closet vibe down a notch. I thought I would want to settle back in to “normal” life immediately, but I am not finding that to be the case.
The Grand Epiphany: I love to write
Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve always been a strong writer (that 800 verbal don’t lie). However, for some completely unknown reason I haven’t really thought of myself as a writer until now, nor have I acknowledged how much I really enjoy doing it. I started writing these travel posts partly so I wouldn’t have to answer the same “Where are you and what are you doing?” questions a thousand times and partly so all the photos I’m constantly taking have a place to go, but also to keep myself on some kind of (rough) creative schedule. Mama needs output; I’m really bad at brain idling and always have been. Your feedback on these travel entries has been really encouraging, and has helped me to peel back what the writing onion is trying to tell me. Now as we all know, no Val boner would be complete without a list of process-related reasons why I like something, so here are a few practical reasons I love to write:
1. You can write anywhere
Not anywhere like how you can illustrate anywhere, because you still need some kind of drawing or tablet set up, but with writing it’s truly anywhere anywhere. In high school I used to write my papers in my head while going on my daily run (insane; I would never run daily now, or at all #weighttraining # blessed), then bang the paper out when I got home. You can write in fragments in Notes, jot things down on napkins, keep it all in your head (not recommended) or keep a pen and paper in your fanny pack (yes I am projecting) to capture all the little idea nuggets that come your way throughout the day. The workflow I’ve arrived at for making these posts happen is by getting thoughts and fragments down in Notes, transferring those to a constantly-being-updated post draft in Substack at the end of the day, then fleshing the full post out later when I have the focus and expanse of time to sit down and write.
2. You can write forever
You may have noticed I don’t have retirement vibes (or finances, let’s be real), so just like I revere gardening because it can be practiced at any pace, to any degree and at any stage of life, I’ve found I feel the same way about writing. The idea that your writing would evolve over decades and you would write theoretically until the day you die (at age 115) is very appealing.
3. Writing allows me to explore ideas without having to put every single one of them into action
Sometimes I am rendered restless by the volume of things I want to try (mostly socially experiments on an unsuspecting public) but time and energy are finite and you can’t do it all, and not all things are worth doing. I’ve found that writing provides a productive container for these impulses/thoughts/ideas without requiring a fully executed event/experiment out in the world. If the idea I’ve explored in writing keeps getting louder in my brain, I can take that as a sign to do it for real, but if it disappears after being written out it’s like the writing out of it clears it from my brain files and I can move on to something more sticky.
What’s next with this writing then?
As the constant travel chapter comes to a pause (not a close; I will sail the high seas of getting the fuck out of here for the summer again), I will indulge another passion of mine: sharing my opinions. There’s a new Substack section coming your way, called KHIS MY ASS, where I’ll be writing short (and possibly controversial but always strong) opinion posts. As is the way of commerce, the first few posts will be free to tempt you with a delicious morsel, but then KHIS MY ASS will switch to a paid subscription model. If you’ve enjoyed my writing thus far I hope you’ll consider throwing me some shekels my way each month to keep it going.
I’ve also redirected valbrains.com to another branch of my Substack (they call it another publication) so it’s easier to see all my book titles at a glance and to create some possibility that I will actually update my website periodically (because I finally don’t despise the backend interface). I even figured out how to change my DNS settings (to re-route the domain) without losing my absolute shit or exploding my computer. Progress! But I was unable to refrain from suggesting a few documentation amendments to the Subtack AI bot I was “chatting” with in the process. I am confident this inability to keep my fat trap shut will come in handy for the KHIS MY ASS opinion section. I’m excited to get that rolling and have of course been filing away topic notes as they come to mind. Until the highly anticipated launch of KHIS MY ASS, please enjoy these very autumnal snaps, from mostly Bath:
Val you are hilarious, I'm gonna have to subscribe to the email notification for new posts!
Brilliant writing,good thoughts,great photos