We woke up in Southwark and Leila lay in (because she was in a comfy bed?) but they realised they had to be quick in order to get back to Kings Cross for 12 and Leila’s book club discussion. We’d planned to set off late but were thrown off-course when we realised Leila hadn’t packed glasses or contacts, she was blind! We realised we’d have to walk and were pretty tight on our hour walk home, no time for brunch. Alex called his mum and quickly went through finishing up some tasks in the flat before leading L by the arm into the scary outside world. L’s eyes were straining but she bravely headed onwards into the city. They super luckily found a 46 bus and L legged it to get onboard, it was great and dropped us outside the house with 30 mins to spare – we decided L’s eyes were definitely case for emergency travel (The bus was pretty tense).
When we got back, L grabbed some glasses and we quickly made coffee and had soft-boiled eggs out in the garden. Alex was super dead and unhelpful at first, probably because he hadn’t really slept the previous night, but perked up after 2 coffees. L went upstairs to join her book club call, it turned out that Jean – Joohee’s South Korean friend, hadn’t read the book which was kind of annoying. Nevertheless, L had a nice chat with Joohee and she realised how differently they had thought about the book, and their lives. Joohee had really started thinking about feminism and the role of women as it relates to her life but Leila hadn’t, probably because the book is sci-fi so she distances herself emotionally as she knows its not real. She wishes she could empathise with fiction a bit more, but she enjoys reading it anyways. The conversation was a little depressing as they started thinking about how the role of women in the household hadn’t changed that much in their lives, but L was much more positive than J and J. Alex chatted with his home crew for 3.5 hours downstairs while making a batch of potatoes that he ended up burning (not doing well) and he was super happy and energised by it. L headed out for a bit to Coal Drops Yard to listen to Spanish and found some Tahini in CDY which had been closed off by the army to become a testing centre. When she came back she was super keen to clean the kitchen and looked crazy pleased with her mini vacuum.
She then joined her big family Zoom call and her cousin wrote up everyone’s updates and recommendations (e.g. recipes, podcasts etc.) into a nice chart after which was lovely. A chatted to Sam and Hannah meanwhile but stopped when he heard Leila come upstairs and they listened to some chill afrobeats from Alex’s mini bathroom speaker. L then showered whilst A played some games and then L started cooking. She experimented with the waffle maker to use up some of the potatoes (which she first cooked in the microwave… who knew?) and also made some marinated aubergine, stir fry veg, and ovened some falafel served with hummus, tahini and pitta. A’s plate was huge and she was convinced he wouldn’t finish it, but she did and he was happy. A had a beer and L treated herself to an S. Pellegrino. A had spent a while choosing a movie and landed on Midnight in Paris. L was happy as its a semi romcom, though still semi sci fi (which he claimed not know about before). They watched on the sofa before finishing the second half on the laptop in bed. A started getting really tense when things heated up between Gil and Ines. When it finished, they talked about travels they want to do including Kilimanjaro (although L needs to run her 5k before she can even think about it any further), taking the Siberian Railway, going to Burma to meet family etc. They dozed off pretty early after a happy weekend.
Coffee, Wine and Isolation 