In which Roz and Layla finish their long goodbye holiday extravaganza in Oslo

by Roz

I can’t quite remember how we chose Oslo as the destination for the final weekend of our five week holiday extravaganza, also known as #wivesontour #thelonggoodbye to our life in America – and hello to London.  But I do know that we had some anxiety about how this weekend would work out – there’s nothing like the end of a holiday and the imminent start of a whole new chapter to produce some stressful moments.  But a few months back we came up with the novel (for us) plan of inviting our friends, Lee and Alan, to join us in Oslo as a distraction technique (and of course because they are fun company!) and so here begins the first Travelling Wives blog where the wives are not alone…

We arrived at the hotel to find Lee and Alan awaiting us (keen!). Having deposited our bags, we all walked in the sunshine to the nearby modern art museum.  This entailed walking down to the harbour and along the waterfront in the beautiful sunshine, and Layla and I began to muse that perhaps we ought to move to Oslo.  We’re so fickle…  The museum contained the art collection of a former explorer (who’d been to the North and South Poles and up Everest) and was not exactly to my taste but quite good anyway.  We spent quite a while musing whether a discarded banana peel was the work of a reprobate child or was art (and later established it was art) and that probably gives you a reasonable vision of the museum.  But it was fun to see some Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin out of their natural habitats and, with a delightful stop in the middle for a cup of afternoon tea and a cake on the museum’s stylish patio overlooking an urban beach, we deemed this a good start to the weekend…

We returned to the hotel to acquire cardigans and the like before our evening walk to Vulkan and Grunelokka, two adjacent cool areas of Oslo filled with hip shops with an array of enticing things, including furniture (Layla and I are particularly alive to the allure of nice furniture, given that we are currently furnishing our new London flat from scratch).  But our actual destination was the Mathallen Hall food market (a la Union Market for those who know DC).  This proved to be all high ceilings, steam punk lighting, exposed brick work and delicious food. We meandered around before settling on dinner from a terrific Asian place where you could customise your meal in a delightful fashion.  Noodled up, we headed deeper into the area in search of mini-golf.  Many of you will know that Layla and I are avid (if not especially talented) mini-golfers.  But Lee and Alan hadn’t played since childhood.  I felt internally gleeful and looked forward to victory (or at least coming only second to Layla, who always seems to win).  But this course was somewhat different from that which we were used to.  It was very definitely not for tourists, not least since the course was very home-made in what seemed to have once been a children’s playground.  Nonetheless, I was confident that Layla and I would be victorious…and then suddenly we were defeated by a couple of tricky holes at the end.  I took 15 strokes on one insanely hard hole (which Alan did in 1).  And Layla went on a crazed rampage to try and batter her golf ball into the hole through a weird construction on the last hole after she started to fail (this didn’t work out well).  And so, Layla came last, and I came second.  But any smugness that I might have hoped to feel was entirely tempered by the fact that it shouldn’t have been thus…

We meandered home through the streets afterwards and then went to bed.  Next morning, we had a nice breakfast in a nearby café before heading back to the marina – but this time, to get a ferry to an Oslo fjord island called Hovedoya. Alas for Layla (who loves a boat ride) it was a brief trip – only ten minutes or so.  But it felt delightfully local with very few other tourists in sight (we were, in fact, surrounded by Norwegians who’d all clearly thought through their plan for the day very well since they all carried very large picnic baskets, blankets and the like).   After admiring the view back to Oslo, we hopped off and found ourselves on a clearly well worn path that took us to the ruins of an old monastery (and past a delightful café) and then onto a path round the island.  We set off enthusiastically.  We sat in the sun on rocks at the water’s edge, watching the tide lap the shore and musing on rock formations. After a while though, once we started walking again, my enthusiasm turned to envy when I suddenly realised that our trip had become a hike and my Birkenstocks were really not absolutely up to the task – in contrast to the hardcore hiking shoes that Alan was wearing.  It’s always disappointing to find that someone else has read your plans for the weekend – and then planned / dressed appropriately when you haven’t!  Nonetheless, we had a very cheery time scrambling over rocks with beautiful views of Oslo and the surrounding islands and only getting a bit lost.  We eventually made it back to where we started (which was harder than it should have been) and then settled down in the delightful café for a very tasty lunch (including waffles) and then a read of our books on the grass.  Eventually, we felt the need to continue on with our sightseeing and we caught the ferry back to the mainland and then hopped on a tram to Vigeland Park. 

The park is famous for having numerous sculptures, including one of a small London child stamping its foot in a temper tantrum.  But I loved the park even before I saw its sculptures for its European feel: it was big, but it felt organised if you know what I mean.  The sculptures themselves turned out to be more fun than I’d have guessed, including the highlight (for Layla and me) of a couple of lesbian statues (which we decided we’d happily have in our garden in Tokyo when we move there… if only the Norwegians fancy lending them to us).  We pottered around for a while and then resolved that it was time for tea and so headed back to a cool area of town we’d seen on the tram as we’d gone past.  We settled ourselves happily in another stylish café, the type of which Oslo is obviously adept at producing, and then presented Lee and Alan with their options for the evening.  We did a blind vote (I was in a minority of one – humph) and so then made our way back to the hotel for a short rest before our evening’s delights began. 

Emerging from the hotel, we headed to the nearby metro (which is delightfully efficient) to have dinner before going to see a 3D version of the film Inside Out at Europe’s largest cinema.  Dinner – Indian food – was very nice indeed (though Alan and Lee showed themselves not up to our levels of greediness and shared a meal…).  We then headed to the largest cinema in Europe to print out our tickets.  The machine only communicated in Norwegian (not unreasonably) but seemed very clear it didn’t want to give us tickets.  We eventually asked for help from the kindly kiosk girl.  She pityingly pointed out we were at the wrong cinema.  It turned out that the cinema we were actually booked to see the film at was not Europe’s largest cinema at all, but instead was a somewhat smaller affair 100 feet from our hotel… Ah well, you win some you lose some!  We headed to the other cinema, grateful for the efficient metro and then settled ourselves down for the film (which was very good, though Layla and I were both upset that there were no Norwegian subtitles – is everyone in the rest of the world other than us really that good at languages?!).  And then, to bed. 

Next morning was Sunday.  In other words, our very last day of holiday.  It’s an odd feeling after thirty seven days.  I feel sad not to be on holiday any longer (and also sad at the realisation that this must mean we definitely aren’t from Washington any more), excited about our new life in London (and our home) and scared of learning Japanese (my course starts tomorrow).  Fortunately, having Lee and Alan around, Layla and I weren’t able to indulge in any unhelpful agonies on this combination of feelings – all the more so since we’d persuaded them into booking a 3 hour kayaking trip (for which we got the last laugh as they hadn’t been warned in advance so couldn’t dress 100% appropriately).  So we all had a brief breakfast in our room with rather good options foraged from the foyer before getting the train to the marina. 

The marina was entirely deserted when we arrived.  This was – we assured ourselves nervously – because we were ridiculously early.  So we retreated to a hipster bakery for tea and such like (this means we ate more food but are a little shamefaced about it).  When we returned, there was more life around and we found the kayaking place without difficulty.  The owner and tour guide was a nice German lady who gave us the best instruction I’ve ever received on how to be good at kayaking (and for once I implemented it) and we soon we were in the beautifully clear waters of the Oslo fjord.  We passed by a number of houseboats and I enjoyed imagining the lives of those living on them (surely the lives of the beautiful contents of the flowerpots could only be brief?!) before heading into the fjord properly.  It was just beautiful to pass by swimmers, naked sunbathers (ah Scandinavia, so liberal!), one hardcore paddleboarder (who was impressive in her ability to stay upright notwithstanding some alarming waves) and the like.  We stopped for strawberries and water on a beach and I mused that it seemed exceptionally unlikely that at that very moment 24 hours hence I would be having a Japanese lesson in rainy London…  Alan challenged me to a race at the end of our trip.  This would have worked out better if either of us had absolutely known where we’d been meant to be docking…  But I don’t think I shall ever recover from his suggestion we consider it a draw (I’m not that kind of a girl).  But just in case I’d had any worries that he might have won the race, I was amused to see him managing to fall completely into the water as he tried to get out of his kayak at the end (nothing to do with me, honest!).  Slightly dripping, we headed back to the area where our hotel is – for Alan to change and for lunch in yet another delightful and stylish café. 

And that’s it.  The end of #thelonggoodbye and #wivesontour.  After lunch we went straight to the airport, and I’m typing this from our plane.  Our plane home, I guess I should say.  Odd to think that this doesn’t mean I’ll be landing in Dulles.  Five weeks of holiday has been glorious.  It has gone by in a flash… 

Time to book our next holiday, I think – don’t you?

BOOKS READ ON HOLIDAY

ROZ: Life as we knew it (Susan Beth Pfeffer), The Dead and the Gone (Susan Beth Pfeffer), The World We Live In (Susan Beth Pfeffer), The Shade of the Moon (Susan Beth Pfeffer), Wonder (RJ Palacio), The Book of Strange New Things (Michael Faber), Landfall (Nevil Shute), Auggie and Me (RJ Palacio), Ruined City (Nevil Shute), The Mirror World of Melody Black (Gavin Extence), The Crimson Petal and the White (Michael Faber), Landline (Rainbow Rowell), A Possible Life (Sebastian Faulks), A Man Called Ove (Frederik Backman), The Revolving Door of Life (Alexander McCall Smith), Some Luck (Jane Smiley), Early Warning (Jane Smiley), and some of Great Expectations (Charles Dickens).

LAYLA: The Fever (Megan Abbot), The House of the Scorpion (Nancy Farmer), Fudgeamania (Judy Blume), Family Life (Akhil Sharma), An Abundance of Katherines (John Green), My Salinger Year (Joanna Rakoff), Belzhar (Mog Wolitzer), Auggie and Me (RJ Palacio), An Old-Fashioned Girl (Louisa May Alcott), Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), The Affinities (Robert Charles Wilson), The Storied Life of AJ Fikry (Gabrielle Zevin), Seveneves (Neal Stephenson) and Landline (Rainbow Rowell).

In which Layla and Roz fall in love with Reykjavik and do some Arctic paddleboarding

By Layla

We were delighted upon late arrival in Reykjavik to find that our AirBnB apartment was fabulous – spacious, stylish, and central. And then even more delighted to find that Reykjavik was also fabulous. When I visited 13 years ago it felt a bit of a backwater whose claim to fame was its penis museum. It now has beautiful streets lines with quirky boutiques, cool cafes, stylish bars and restaurants, street art everywhere, a fancy concert hall, an entire road painted in rainbow stripes in celebration of LGBT pride, and of course delightful views out over the water to the volcanic skyline. We dashed up and down the street joyfully, popping into a grocery store to stock up on self-catering supplies, and finished the evening in a gloriously cool coffeeshop round the corner from our flat, drinking Icelandic beers by candlelight and wondering if in fact we should move to Reykjavik.

We dragged ourselves out of bed early the next day, wondering why we’d booked an all-day hike for our first day. Then got into a grump when they were late picking us up after our efforts. But pick us up they did, and our little minibus zoomed for a couple of hours across the Icelandic terrain, which essentially consists of one road and a lot of black lava rocks, very flat land, lots of sheep and horses, and of course the huge, looming volcanic rocks, formations and mountains. We stopped at one place where there was a very tall waterfall, picked up more people, then proceeded along what could charitably be called a dirt path, except the dirt was in fact big lava stones, and the whole thing regularly plunged into rivers, through which our four-wheel drive bus stoically bounced while we shrieked and grabbed things. We stopped off at a glacier, then got to the bottom of Fimmvorduhal, one of the most popular Iceland mountains/volcanoes for hiking. But wait: the bottom? We had explicitly booked a trip to hike across a pass along the top of the mountain and then down. Instead we were faced with up, up, up and I was wrathful. The guide from the company (Arctic Adventures) vaguely said they’d changed the itinerary due to snow on the pass when I queried it, then set off at a march. I growled bitterly and started climbing.

The walk was beautiful, with huge jagged peaks, crazy rock formations, lots of glaciers, a scattering of flowers, and a decent amount of sun. But when the shallow incline was about to become an unpleasantly steep ascent, and we became aware that we wouldn’t get home til 9:30pm, Roz and I decided that this was not what we had signed up for and took matters into our own hands. We smiled sweetly at a guide from another company and asked if we could hitch a lift home with his group. He sort of said yes, or something, in vague Icelandic tones. Then he and his group proceeded to leap down the mountain like athletic mountain goats while Roz and I stumbled and dashed to keep up, though now in a good mood at the prospect of getting home in time for dinner.

At the bottom of the mountain our lift turned out to be in the back of a covered pick-up truck, and our destination the waterfall. Thus proceeded a nerve-wracking, extremely bouncy ride on the bottom of the trailer, flying in the air and clinging on for dear life as lava stones zoomed past and water sprayed. Whenever the driver went through a river, it came in the windows. Still, it was fun and silly, but I was relieved when we got to the waterfall, just in time to catch the alleged public bus. Oh wait, no bus for 2 hours? Oh dear… We started smiling sweetly at tourists: “Are you by chance returning to Reykjavik?” “No.” Until finally I struck gold by approaching three Chinese people who didn’t seem to speak much English. My question seemed to confuse them into agreeing to drive us home, in a fancy, comfortable minibus. It soon transpired that they were Chinese diplomats. Hilarious.

The Chinese diplomats got us back to Reykjavik in record time and took us right to our apartment, so we delightedly had dinner at home, then popped into a cool little bar for happy hour wine and a cheese board, and thereafter to Bio Paradis, the coolest cinema in town, where we bought a giant bag of popcorn and settled down to watch an excellent film called “Red Army”. Then we had cocktails in a very cool bar.  An excellent evening, made all the sweeter by knowing we salvaged it from the prospect of no evening at all. Thanks random guide and Chinese diplomats!

The next day was our Reykjavik day and we started it with coffee/hot chocolate in a nice little coffeeshop, followed by a scenic walk around three downtown lakes on an attractive path lines with cool sculptures. We then had delicious soup and salad and bread I still dream of for lunch at Bergsson Mathus – an outstanding and very hip café. From there to the photography museum for various photo exhibits by Icelandic photographers – pleasant, and nice that it was on the top floor of the library. And then to the Icelandic Museum of Art, in a cool old warehouse building. They had some bizarre contemporary art exhibitions, the most disturbing of which was a teddy bear room where teddies were stuck together with wax in various shapes, their stuffing removed, etc.

We popped home to grab swimming costumes, then strolled along the sea wall path and up to another branch of the art museum, focused on an Icelandic sculptor who had built an architecturally exciting studio and left it and its contents to the city of Reykjavik. We were the only visitors and the staff member was plainly quite excited to see us and went to some lengths to ensure we had every bit of information we could possibly want.  He was adorable and it was jolly. And from there to Laugardalur swimming pool. Given the plethora of geothermal activity in Iceland, naturally heated outdoor pools are exceptionally popular. Alas for Roz, I’d vetoed the most famous touristy one, the Blue Lagoon, for being expensive and far away, and instead we went to the city’s public pool. This was very much fun – there were several swimming pools and hot tubs of different temperatures, so we swam laps in the slightly warm one, luxuriated in the 38 degrees one, sampled 40 degrees, looked in horror at people lowering themselves into 4 degrees, and went on the rather good waterslide. Not bad for about $5.

We failed to get a bus home and had to walk the 3km somewhat unwillingly, but got home quickly, cooked up a quick dinner, then returned to the lovely Bio Paradis cinema to see an Icelandic film called Virgin Mountain. They have a cool initiative to subtitle local films in English, and Virgin Mountain was great – funny, subtle, great performances. Oh, and more popcorn… Afterwards, cocktails and cheeriness.

The following day it was time for another tour, but Iceland weirdly starts its day tours in the afternoon, so we spent the morning doing a big list of chores (moving country, buying a new home, and furnishing it are more effort than you might suspect… actually, maybe less effort than you might suspect, but nevertheless, some effort has been required!). At any rate, we finished, went for a walk round the lakes in the opposite direction to add some thrill to our stroll, and returned to that delicious café for lunch. And then to the Old Harbour, to meet the Reykjavik bike tour people.

The standard tour in Iceland is called the ‘Golden Circle’ tour – a several-hour drive that takes you to a big waterfall (Iceland’s Niagara Falls), geysers (indeed the one after which all others are named), and the site of the ancient Icelandic parliament, where the EurAsian tectonic plate meets the American tectonic plate. Usually this is done by bus, but we had signed up to cycle. Luckily, given this involves several hours of driving, we didn’t have to cycle the whole thing. Instead our really excellent guide drove us most of the way, with two 15km stretches of glorious downhill cycling. The first was across farmland, with the ubiquitous volcanic backdrop – really fun. Then we walked around the big waterfall, which was lots of fun. And then watched the geyser erupting which was exceptionally cool – huge blasts of water about 20 metres into the air, every few minutes. We ate our packed dinner on a bench directly opposite – maybe the coolest ever dinnertime scenery. After the geyser fun, we drove to a backroad that went along a lake that exists between the two tectonic plates – these plates are moving apart an inch per year, and our next activity was to cycle between them. Having waved goodbye to America, we rather liked the idea of cycling back. And it was highly satisfactory: the lake was exceptionally pretty, the cycle was gloriously downhill, and it finished at a very clear demarcation of the plates, and the site of the ancient parliament. We got back quite late but still popped out to our local hipster coffeeshop for Icelandic beer (and a big slice of chocolate cake).

The next day heralded news of the successful purchase of our London flat, and a celebratory return to our favourite lunch spot – with a thrill when we spotted the female star of the Virgin Mountain film eating lunch next to us! Star struck, we finished our soup and dashed home for our third and final Icelandic tour: a paddleboarding adventure. Everyone who knows us knows that we love to paddleboard and try to do it wherever we travel. Iceland was a challenge… but then we found Arctic Surfers and paid an unpleasantly large sum of money for a day of adventure paddleboarding. In reality this turned out to be an afternoon of driving all over the place in a truck, peering at the water in a shivery gale, trying to find a fjord that was sufficiently non-wavy to facilitate paddleboarding. After a couple of false starts, an appropriate location was identified and we began the hilarious pursuit of donning wetsuits – much trickier than I’d imagined, but rewarding once suited up, and it protected from the freezing wind. Roz found it less rewarding, being allergic to the material. But off we went. The waves might have been smaller than the others but they were still very vigorous. I spent much of the first part shrieking and envisioning a plummet from my board into the freezing jellyfish-infested waters. Roz was incapacitated by itching from the suit. We were so busy trying to stay afloat that we barely even looked at the sweeping volcanic hills. It was all a bit unfortunate. Then, thankfully, the wind calmed down, Roz managed to wrestle herself partly out of her wetsuit, we ate our dinner sandwich perched on our boards, and then much more serenely paddled back to shore. Not sure we’d do that again, to be honest, but in retrospect, it was very cool. Back home in time for cheese and wine at a cool little French restaurant, before an early bedtime: we had to get up before the crack of dawn the next day to get to the airport for our final destination: Oslo! It is hard to believe our glorious mammoth trip is almost at an end. But not quite yet.

In which Layla and Roz meet their new Brixton home, and do the Edinburgh Festival

By Layla

It feels like a thousand years since I lay in bed watching the British coastline drift into view, and at least 800 years since we stepped off the glory that was the Queen Mary 2 and down into the grey reality of Southampton. But soon we were on the train and hurtling into London for a new adventure, and a misguided plan involving pulling numerous giant suitcases around the London Underground. But at last we wrangled them successfully, dropped them off in various locations, and emerged unscathed from Brixton Station into our new home neighbourhood, where our estate agent greeted us in relief to find that we were real people rather than finding he had sold a flat to participants in an elaborate ruse. And so we proceeded to view our new home. Somewhat belatedly, some might say…

There is something disconcerting about going to view a flat that you’ve already committed to buying, that you have never seen before. In fact we had done our flat-hunting long-distance, from Washington. Having witnessed various London friends having a prolonged and horrible time trying to buy properties in person, we opted for the exciting tactic of sending various friends round to view good prospects on our behalf with a view to securing one to live in on our return. After rejecting one for mice, one for a dodgy lease, and one for being dank and joyless, we hit upon success with flat number four, and put in an offer. Success! But also trepidation… A few months after Gaby first viewed it for us, we entered, holding our breath… what would it be like? And then we breathed. Phew: it’s fine. We dashed around taking photos and measurements.  We spotted the tip of the Shard and Southwark Cathedral over the rooftops from our living room window… and then in a state of excited shock, we retired to the gloriously hipster Brixton Village, a hop, skip and jump away, for an organic sandwich and a pretentious coffee and a little jig of delight: we did have somewhere to live!

But of course it was certainly not time to move in: we still had almost two weeks of holiday to go, and the first part was to be spent in Edinburgh. So off we went on the train, to be met by Iain and Gary at Waverley Station and escorted to their house where they kicked off a delightful few days of Edinburgh Festival fun by bestowing champagne and Tunnock’s teacakes. What could be better?!

Edinburgh is always a delight. The castle provides a gloriously scenic backdrop to proceedings. Arthur’s Seat (a big hill) pokes temptingly through gaps in the charming old buildings. In the other direction, the water glints. Cool coffee shops lure us in. And in August, the city bustles and sparkles with thousands of performances, with every space transformed into a theatre. We aim to go every year.  Roz, who has a very clear (some might say obsessive) festival technique, was perturbed that due to lack of wifi while crossing the Atlantic, she had been forced to buy tickets before reading the shows’ reviews, so our timetable was riskier than usual…

But it was of course all proved to be fine. Over the course of almost 5 days we saw around 15 shows including at the Fringe Festival, Film Festival and Book Festival, plus two art shows. We also got to spend time with our lovely hosts Iain and Gary, plus David, Lee, Alan, Rebecca, Kenny, Jill, and Phil (plus their children). We drank wine in Ecco Vino. We ate ice cream in the sun. We admired the new flat rented by recent London exports, Lee and Alan. We drank much coffee in hipster cafes, became convinced that steam punk light fittings are essential for our new flat and had numerous avocado dishes for breakfast. We walked around Arthur’s Seat in the sunshine (and Roz also ran around it while I stayed in bed…). We arranged a painter to go into our new flat. We unlocked one of our phones, procured a new phone number, and set up wifi for Brixton and thus regained our Britishness – at least from a telecommunications perspective. It’s so much fun to roam around cool festival hubs where everyone is sitting on benches between shows, drinking gin and pimms and being cheery. And working our way between venues, we get to enjoy lots of the city. We don’t usually go to art during the festival, but we loved an exhibition about Lee Miller and Pablo Picasso, and enjoyed dressing up in Victorian garb for a photo exhibition. The best play we saw was Every Brilliant Thing and the best comedy was Robin Ince, though we also enjoyed several others. The most lovely author was Jackie Kay, the coolest was the mathematician Cedric Villani, and the whole book festival had a delightful vibe that made us happy. The most rubbish thing we saw was probably Chicken, an ill-conceived dystopia. The most rubbish audience member was me, falling asleep in the front row of what was a rather excellent show in a small but exceptionally ill air-conditioned theatre… oops! I’m just saying: we were quite busy! I also won the prize for least committed audience member: I strongly wanted to see Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens, but could anyone want something strongly enough to stay up til 1am? Certainly not me!

Today we dragged our giant suitcases to the book festival, made a spectacle of ourselves by pulling them into a lecture with Matt Haig, and then headed to the airport, where we oddly encountered my ex-girlfriend of about 11 years ago getting the same flight as us. What a lovely Edinburgh interlude. But onwards: our Icelandic adventures await!

In which Layla and Roz fall in love with the Queen Mary 2

By Layla

I never thought we would become ‘cruise people’. In fact I confess I have never thought or uttered the term ‘cruise people’ with a tone of admiration or envy. And yet. And YET. After just one week’s voyage from New York to Southampton on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 has given me the insight: horror or glory… I think I might be a cruise person. Or at least a voyage person. On our last day I can only think: this is a travesty! When is my next cruise? Can I make it a thirty-day voyage? Is there a boat from Southampton to Tokyo?

In one of my favourite children’s books, The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild, the Winter family travel by boat from England to New York. One of the children muses that if days could be thought of as beads on a string, there are dull beads for schooldays and colourful beads for birthdays, but days at sea have such a different quality that they needed a separate string all of their own. They were right. And thus, here are some of the ways in which the Queen Mary 2 has charmed me. 

I have never been busier, with things I really want to do

Roz and I spent the day before we boarded manically loading books onto our Kindles. Despite the ‘largest floating library in the world’, we were terrified of running out of reading material and being bored. Chance would be a fine thing! Every night, the next day’s programme is delivered to our comfy little cabin, a shiny and yet charming four-page document listing our entertainment options from dawn until well after dusk. It rapidly became a thrill to pounce upon it (always delivered complete with two chocolates with the Cunard logo, of course) and we would read it together, marking the things we wanted to do. Remarkably, there were so many things we wanted to do that we had to skip some of them. Not just ‘oh, I suppose we could do that,’ but ‘hmm, if we were at home, we’d have paid for a ticket and travelled an hour to do that.’ We have loved the RADA poetry readings set to live music – not to mention their performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pride and Prejudice (and their drama class… sadly I’ve been too busy to attend the other two and get my RADA certificate). We delighted in an ITN cameraman’s four outstanding and truly compelling talks on different experiences in the course of his job on the ten o’clock news. We smiled at another talk by a trainspotter about the history of the railway in Britain. We went to two excellent planetarium shows. I went to two art classes. Roz took a yoga class. We heard world-class singers. We watched award-winning ballroom dancers (and had a jive class with them). We hopped into the pool. We played shuffleboard and ping pong and watched a film. And every night we saw music and dancing in the theatre, then went to a beautiful dance, where we sipped cocktails, watched outstanding dancers spin around the ballroom, and even got up ourselves, including with dance hosts paid to make us feel cool and happy on the dance floor. Again and again as the days rolled by, I resolved to go and curl up in the library and read. Or kick back on our balcony. Or grab one of the tempting deck loungers. In fact I’ve got through less than three books in a week – much fewer than usual! I feel anxious that our seven days at sea are not nearly enough!

It is a genuinely Downton Abbey experience

My delight at this voyage extends far beyond the activities. The ship is beautiful. It is sumptuous and stylish and charming and spotless and has a very attractive 1920s look to it, and stairways down which to sweep in a ballgown. There is pretty much nothing crass or neon or flashing or 21^st century to sully the view on the Queen Mary 2. People dress smartly and attractively for the most part, absolutely in the spirit of things. When we want tea, we call for it, at any hour of the day, and it arrives promptly on a silver platter amidst smiles and politeness. At 3:30 we descend to the Queen’s Room to partake of a formal afternoon tea. Live music plays in the servers, whose procession is applauded politely and delightedly, as they fan out around the room, distributing tea and impeccable crustless sandwiches, glorious cakes, and gorgeous scones. Of course we dress for dinner, whether the night is designated informal or formal. Of course we stroll around the deck, nodding polite hellos to each other (with a special hello to the ‘friends of Dorothy’ we met on the first night). Of course we dance, elegant ball dancing as much as we can achieve. The children on board are polite, quiet, smiling and restrained. And on formal evenings, every man dons a bow tie. The highlight of the day is the captain’s message at noon, giving us our location, speed, temperature, distance from land, and – on most days – a time change of an hour. It all feels ceremonial and romantic and charming.

A technology holiday

We bought one of their expensive satellite internet packages and certainly we have used it but there is something refreshing about being so restricted in our phonetime. We find ourselves reading rather than checking Facebook or our emails. And when we do get a few moments to log in, we find that few of our emails were urgent, and few of the Facebook posts on our newsfeed were actually the sort of personal news from our friends that we care about. It may not last, but it drove home to us that we don’t necessarily receive much added value from checking Facebook, email and the like on a ten-minutely basis. What is also nice is that for the most part, nobody else is using screens either. Our eyes are largely unsullied by the trappings of the 21^st century. Other than different fashions, it feels surprisingly similar to some of the black and white films of such voyages. I’m on the look out for card sharks and heiresses.

It is rather delightful to find everything a hop, skip and a jump away

One might think it dull to be constrained to one ship for a whole week. In fact it is delightful. There are so many places to sit, so many entertainment venues, so many restaurants… and the surprising convenience of popping up to our room to grab a cardigan, or a glass of fizz on the balcony (or sneak a look at the next day’s program). Of course our room is always sparkling clean and beautifully tidy, so it’s always nice to return. But it’s not a hassle to go anywhere. And it means you can fit in more fun too: in a single morning I can go for a swim, have breakfast, attend a class, a talk, some live music, and still have time for a game of Scrabble in a cosy corner overlooking the water.

The scenery is glorious

Speaking of overlooking the water, it is neverendingly lovely to look out over the Atlantic. The waves from the vantage point of our eleventh floor balcony seem smooth and hypnotic, while from down on the second floor Scrabble nook, they’re thrilling. The decks are full of tasteful loungers and there is a surprising amount of sun. I was sad to not see dolphins but the water is fun in itself.

The food is rather excellent

Given our tickets, we were assigned to the ‘cheap’ restaurant, the Britannia, and braced ourselves for the worst . Wrong. The dinners have been delicious, and served with all the pomp and circumstance one could wish. The vegetarian enthusiasm has been impressive, with at least two starter and main course options… and an entire other menu we can order in advance if we don’t like the sound of these selections. There is also an almost-constant buffet, which is rather good. And the afternoon teas… the stuff of dreams. And last night’s 10:30pm ‘chocolate and ice buffet’ (choux pastry, chocolate, and ice sculptures) could only be dubbed divine decadence.

The people are remarkably friendly

I am sure that people who take a voyage on the Queen Mary 2 come from all sorts of life (and noting that you can actually do this trip for very little money if you get a good deal), and yet there is a lovely non-judgmental vibe to the boat. There seem to be very few gay couples on board and we had to summon our courage to get up and dance, but once we did, we felt far less shy than we would on a dance floor on land. We knew our dancing skills left something to be desired, but people were smiling and non-judgmental (or not obviously so). People seemed to get less irritated with each other. When we encountered a sparring pair of young siblings, they felt crass and out of place. The order of the day seems to be to embody charm to match our surroundings and bizarrely it seems to work. I can’t remember feeling more serene.

I have just spotted the first sign of land as we near the UK. There is seaweed floating past. I’ve seen the only other ship since we set off, and some seagulls. The signs are there: tomorrow our voyage ends. It’s hard to explain, but it HAS felt as though these seven days need a special necklace string all to themselves. It has been glorious. I wish it wasn’t ending yet. But there is the thrill of a return to London… and the possibility of another cruise sometime soon!

In which Roz and Layla become cruise people aboard the Queen Mary 2

By Roz

I’d never really had cause to go to the British Embassy Post Office until this year.  But my mother’s death brought with it a raft of paperwork and I found our Post Office to be almost identical to one in Britain, right down to the pen chained to the counter.  But the posters on the wall were slightly different, and one day I noticed a poster saying “Finishing your tour? Why not return by boat?”  I paid little attention to this curiosity at the time, but mentioned it to Layla more or less in passing at breakfast at the Blue Duck Tavern on her birthday.  She paused, after I said this. And then said: “well, why not indeed – shall we?”.  And so it was that on her birthday morning I found myself walking to work and googling transatlantic crossings. 

In the run-up to the trip, I had a number of anxieties. Layla and I aren’t really cruise people, I told myself. We are known for our energetic and rather less-than-comfortable travel plans, preferably to obscure post-war zones and the like. Surely we should really be devoting the week to doing something suitably intrepid? There was also a little bit of guilt – this was the kind of trip which my mother would have wholeheartedly approved of and it seemed wrong to do it and not be able to tell her about it.  But underneath all of these emotions was a feeling of pure excitement that was sparked by all the books I’ve read over the years about emigrating to the US in the late 19^th and early 20^th century and all the glamorous Hollywood films set on board transatlantic liners I’ve seen.

Arriving at the cruise terminal in Brooklyn, we giggled with delight at the sight of the very beautiful Queen Mary 2 and at the improbable idea that we were about to board it. Or rather, Her. We’d assumed that security and so forth would be a dreary and drawn-out process (as it is in airports).  But nothing could have been further from the truth. I can’t remember the last time we travelled romantically but as our bags were swept away, we were swooped along a gangway and before long found ourselves stepping onto a plush carpet in the lobby and gazing up at the chandelier in some bemusement – it isn’t often, after all, that you feel as though you’ve stepped onto a movie set. 

We got the lift up to our cabin and congratulated ourselves on taking our friend’s advice to get a cabin with a see-through balcony – it made the room feel gloriously light and let us look out over well, Brooklyn pier, but soon to be the ocean waves. We noted a big bed, a desk and chair, a little sofa, our balcony seating, en suite bathroom… and a bottle of champagne from the captain chilling on the coffee table. We stared disconcertedly at the room service menu that stated everything was free of charge, and could be promptly summoned on a whim, 24 hours a day. Seeing a wicked flash in Layla’s eyes, I instituted an executive rule: no summoning of hot apple pie and custard after midnight…

We then went off to explore, starting at the bottom of the boat and working our way up. It feels a bit like a huge, beautiful old hotel. The décor is a fabulous mix of sumptuous extravagance and old-movie elegance. We poked our noses into the lovely theatre, meandered round the various cocktail rooms and restaurants (in addition to the room service, there’s a buffet available all day and meals in restaurants and a pub, all included – in fact there’s nothing to stop us having three of each type of meal each day). In view of this, following my pleading (despite reluctance from Layla), we identified the gym. That all done, we marched round the deck of the boat, took photos, and generally did a jump of glee. This was to be a whole new travel adventure.

Back in our room we unpacked, contemplated that we really ought to do washing in their free laundrette… and then determinedly put that thought out of our minds and instead settled down to read the day’s meticulously detailed programme which had been left on our bed, advising us of our many entertainment options for every hour of the day. But before we could act on that, we were summoned to the emergency drill and practised putting on life jackets and the like. And then we headed off to the Commodore Club for an official meeting of “Friends of Dorothy”, as per the daily programme’s instructions. It was quite cheery to meet some of the other gays on the boat but we didn’t linger too long, since we were keen to be in the perfect spot on the boat to appreciate our departure from New York at 6pm. 

We ended up settling for a spot on the 8^th deck at the back of the boat which had champagne and cheery music. And soon enough, we were off! I have to say that our departure from New York really wasn’t cheery at all. Like pulling off a plaster very slowly, we inched our way further and further from the shore and the skyline and our adopted home while the live band played ‘We Are Sailing’ and ‘New York, New York’ and we all waved US flags and drank champagne. It felt momentous and heart-breaking and we both wept.  But it was fun to see random passers-by waving at the boat.  And passing the Statue of Liberty felt suitably like one of the many books I’ve read about the crossing. Then we went under a bridge and into the open water, the Statue of Liberty receded into the horizon… and we were truly off.

And so we headed down to dinner (having changed, first, naturally) in the Britannia Restaurant.  Dinner was elegant and excellent (and has been excellent every night subsequently) with much surprising enthusiasm for pleasing vegetarian guests.  After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show with the Queen Mary’s singers and dancers which was perfectly good and thereafter we went to the Queen’s ballroom where a live band played and we drank cocktails and envied the dancing skills of other passengers – til we were both asked to dance a foxtrot by the official dance hosts, which was certainly painful for them but quite fun for us. And then to bed!

I slept beautifully. Layla, however, was awoken by a huge thunderstorm, which she claims lit up the whole room with lightening.  Ah well, my ability to sleep through loud noises and bright lights will serve us well when we are soon living next door to Brixton Police Station…  Next morning, I persuaded Layla that she should come to the gym with me. She reluctantly agreed, but not before summoning (free) room service to bring us coffee and juice. As you do. We went for a brief run once around the deck (a third of a mile) before going inside and getting into the gym which I found to be exactly like every other gym I’ve ever been to (dull) but which Layla seemed more enthusiastic than usual about because she was able to complete a soduku puzzle whilst on an elliptical… I have to say I’ve never seen anyone moving slower on an elliptical machine…

After breakfast, I intended to go to see fruit carving whilst Layla went to a drama class run by RADA.  But I got sidetracked by the lure of the largest floating library in the world and had a very pleasant time sitting in a brilliant library seat looking out over the front of the ship, reading my book and slightly imagining I was captaining it.  We then reconvened at a lecture by an ITN cameraman called Phil Bye (where I confessed shamefacedly to Layla that I’d skipped my fruit carving whilst she told me I’d been an idiot for not coming to the excellent drama class).  I’m not sure what I expected from the talk…but Phil Bye was lively and absorbing and it’s one of the best of that kind of talks I’ve heard – I’d have been very happy had I paid to attend. It was then lunch (delicious).  After which Layla headed to a watercolour class whilst I returned to my book (feeling happy but guilty).  Layla reappeared cheerily enough, having joined a subversive movement in the watercolour class and painted something completely different to what they’d been told to do (glad I wasn’t her teacher) and we headed to afternoon tea. On the Queen Mary 2, afternoon tea is the most elegant of institutions, involving a live band, delightful scones, cucumber sandwiches and tiny, beautiful cakes… and of course, really good tea. The waiters offered us an infinite amount of each. We mused on how many scones it was legitimate for one person to eat in a day and then decided that it was best to gloss over this for fear of setting ourselves a rule we wouldn’t / couldn’t keep to on subsequent days.  We then sat and read our books before the “formal” dinner, Layla lamenting her lack of reading time due to so many good activities.  The formal refers, of course, to formalwear (three of the evenings are thus designated) and we were interested to see how others would interpret this.  We’d brought two cocktail dresses each (taking up far too much space in our luggage!) and worried that everyone would either look more glamorous than us – or less.  But it turned out we were just about right, and it was super fun to come down to dinner to find everyone in white tie and fancy dresses. 

After dinner, we were a little bemused about what to do, since the next entertainment wasn’t for a while (and it seems we have become people who are very enthusiastic about being entertained at all times!).  We ended up going on a wander round the boat.  On the top deck we found a ping pong table, which was lots of fun until children came to claim it from us.  But by this time the sun had started to set and so we went out and found ourselves on a deserted top deck and watched then sunset in a ridiculously picturesque movie moment. Thereafter we went to the theatre to listen to a really terrific singer from New Zealand perform a range of songs from opera to Broadway and then headed to the Winter Garden, where the RADA troupe did a good staged reading of the history of Cunard. Finally, we headed to the ballroom to watch the dancing. We mused that the combination of being the only visibly gay people and the only really terrible dancers was an unfortunate one – if only one had been true, then it would have been so much easier to get on to the dance floor.  However, we eventually got up our nerve for one dance before bed. 

The next morning, I persuaded Layla to come to the gym for a second time (such a thing has never been heard of before but the infinite scones were striking anxiety in her dieting aspirations).  The day delivered a good combination of engaging speakers (one on Howard Hughes), a planetarium show, afternoon tea (again the existential question: is there such a thing as too many scones?), walking round the boat and reading on our balcony and in the library.  We also saw a terrific production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the RADA troupe (the only time I’ve ever found the play within a play interesting, which is no mean feat).  After dinner, we played ping pong (I won many times – ha!) before heading down to the evening’s show “Crazy in Love”.  This was fine, but the real excitement of the evening was the big band concert – back in the ballroom, bringing together both of the ship’s orchestras.  We again had a debate about the merits of dancing or not, but then decided that talentless though we are, we find it jolly and thus we should bite the bullet.  And so we did, dancing away to a variety of numbers from Glenn Miller to Frank Sinatra alongside some outstanding ballroom dancers. When we got up, we were the only gays on the dancefloor, but when the last song played, two other same sex couples had joined us, and we felt we had staged a mini-revolution… 

And then to bed.  We would never have seen ourselves as cruise people before now.  But for once I’m very glad to have been proved wrong.   

In which Layla and Roz bid a tearful farewell to their adopted home country

By Layla

We had a quick Chipotle dinner on Saturday evening before heading back to the cinema, this time to see the new Woody Allen film Irrational Man, which was surprisingly good. We finished the evening with wine and sticky toffee pudding at fancy restaurant The Kitchen. Delicious.

For our final day in Boulder we'd planned a day trip to a nearby town called Nederland but I got cold feet about the logistics so we ended up doing a small hike from a nearby trailhead instead. It is astounding how many trails there are in a 5-mile radius from our little home in Boulder! I had given Roz my cold and she was feeling less than sprightly so after our walk, we esconsced ourselves in a series of lovely cafes to read our books, eat lunch, indulge in specialty chocolates, sip coffee, and gorge on zucchini bread. I made a side-trip to beautiful Boulder Library to print our tickets for the Queen Mary 2. And we retired to our 'shed' to pack and primp. An excellent way to spend the afternoon.

That evening we had a reservation at the famed vegetarian restaurant Leaf. En route we passed the finish line of the Iron Man contest that had dominated the thoughts and plans of Boulder since our arrival. The clock read 12 and a half hours and we watched contestants run/limp/stumble across the finish line to the sound of the announcer: "Bob, you are now an IronMan!" Roz and I mused on how we'd like someone to say that about us, but on reflection it was never going to happen. We retired to Leaf and had a delicious meal with some excellent cocktails... Then we ditched the vegan, gluten-free desserts for an enormous Eton Mess back at The Kitchen. I'm ashamed to say I ate so much I felt sick!

We were up unpleasantly early the next day for, oh miracle, an on-time flight (which ironically we nearly missed due to appalling security lines at Denver). And then, oh delight, New York City. We are staying in the Park Slope/Gowanus area of Brooklyn for three reasons: value, proximity to Queen Mary 2, and proximity to The Moth story slam. After years of fruitlessly putting my name in the hat and never, ever being chosen in New York, I was convinced that on my last night in America, the fates would smile upon me. After all, this month's theme was 'destiny'.

But first to Wholefoods to buy water, prosecco and snacks for our Queen Mary cabin, a trick we'd read about online to circumnavigate the costly drinks onboard. Then a beautiful stroll around Park Slope with gelato. Then Jenga and Connect 4, food and wine at a cool little restaurant. And finally, a stroll over to the Bell House for the grand moment of truth: The Moth. 400 people were crammed in for the sold-out show. I put my name in the bag to tell a story. And then Roz and I sat in a whirl of nervous anticipation as each name was chosen in turn. The show was fantastic with some outstanding stories... But was I going to be called? Nope. Our disappointment was hard to suppress. At the end of the show they always have the unselected people get in stage and say the first line of their story. I got up and said 'When I moved to America four years ago I thought it was my destiny to perform at a New York Moth story slam, but every time I came to a show I put my name in the hat and never, ever got chosen - so on my last night in America tonight, I must conclude it wasn't my destiny after all." At which point the whole audience collectively went 'awwww', and shouted as one that I MUST be allowed to perform. And so I was. I wasn't in the official competition, but it was still a fab and fitting end to our time in America. We celebrated afterwards with prosecco and bruschetta at a nearby bar, but our delight was muted by the fact that this was our very last night as people who live in the US. It feels like home here now. We have a strange and exciting year ahead of us, living in London, then Tokyo, but it's hard to say goodbye to our life here.

At Roz's speech at her work's goodbye reception a few weeks ago, she quoted from 'The Book of Unknown Americans' (great novel) where, upon leaving the US, a character says 'I will tell them of the ways I have loved this country.' As we prepare for our final New York morning, I will borrow from the other quote Roz used, from Great Expectations (which in fact I'm reading right now) to summarize my experience of living here: 'what larks.'

This morning we headed into Manhattan to say farewell to some of our most beloved NYC haunts. First a stroll the full length of the Highline Park, including a delightful stop to join in the construction of a white Lego city. Roz got so absorbed with constructing an elaborate gate that I had to drag her away. We stopped at Blue Bottle Coffee, then walked along Hudson and Bleeker Street to the Cornelia Street Cafe, where we have spent numerous happy times with wine flights and moroccan hummus and watching storytelling. We had a delicious lunch that mirrored our first visit there, on our honeymoon many years ago when we first got the idea to move to America. And now it's time to say goodbye in slow, dramatic style as we prepare to sail past the Statue of Liberty to begin our 7-day Queen Mary 2 voyage from New York to Southampton, and the next chapter.   

In which Roz and Layla wear out their legs and flee bear rumours on the hills of Boulder

by Roz
 

Though our plane was delayed and we didn’t get into Boulder until late lunchtime-ish, we had a fairly useful / practical time of identifying furniture and such for our new flat.  And reading The Crimson Petal and the White (in my case) and learning Japanese characters (in Layla’s case – she’s more virtuous than me).  Our new home for the next five days proved to be a slightly scary but very well equipped shed in the garden of a very fancy house on one of the loveliest streets in Boulder (though disappointingly at the top of a hill).  All in all, we were relatively content - we’d really struggled to find somewhere good to stay at a decent price because it’s the Iron Man competition in Boulder this weekend which is bringing thousands of people to the area (rather them than me!) and although a shed isn’t optimal, at least it’s quite a nice one… (note by Layla who booked it: it’s a perfectly normal tiny studio apartment!)

Having kind of settled into our shed (studio! - L), we headed down the hill for soup at a hippy nearby café.  This was delicious, though we studiously avoided “asking more” about their particular brand of spiritualism, as the menu suggested … We then pottered down the Pearl, the road which is Boulder’s downtown, dodging talentless violinists and rather skilled circus performers before collapsing in a pretty park next to a farmer’s market by the river.  It was very lovely to read our books but guilt / parsimony was calling – I’d heard that the Contemporary Art Museum is free on market days and it seemed a shame to miss out.  So we popped in, and enjoyed some of what we saw, including some rather pleasing map pieces.  This done, we went back to the park and alternately enjoyed reading our books and watching some people practising acro-yoga (the latter was very cool, and I feel that I need to add this to my yoga repertoire).  Eventually, it was getting towards evening and so we pottered on to a cinema to see Paper Towns.  This proved to be not particularly good (I find myself much irritated by tales of nerdy children needing to turn cool) but the popcorn was nice and it was bang next door to a grocery store (which central Boulder seems too hippy to be enthusiastic about otherwise) and this handily resolved our dilemmas about food for breakfast and so forth over the next few days.  We then hopped on a bus back into the downtown and had a delightful cocktail in Salt before retiring to our shed. (note from Layla: studio apartment!)

We slept quite well and enjoyed having breakfast on our little patio next morning.  Our landlady came by to check on us, and Layla cleverly persuaded her to offer to let us use her washing machine (Boulder also seems too cool for laundrettes in the downtown area).  This ended up occupying more time than we expected but there was a nice breeze whilst we waited it out – and Layla demonstrated excessive virtue in using the additional time to sort out the cancellation of our phone contracts (or rather to begin the process of doing so).  We eventually headed out and tried to hire bikes.  Alas no success (the early bird had rented all the bikes at the nearby store).  We began heading to another store when we had the genius idea of hiring bikes from the Boulder bikeshare scheme.  This was exceptionally easy and soon we were heading towards the Boulder Creek path.  We had a very jolly time cycling along the creek with locals, surrounded by mountains and into Boulder Canyon.  And the way back was even jollier, since it proved more downhill than we’d anticipated and so we barely moved our legs. (I recognise that this isn’t everyone’s aspiration when cycling, but I liked it…)  We parked and – once Layla had taken another call about cancelling our phone contracts – headed to a delightful Tajikistan tearoom.  This sounds unlikely, but had been a gift from a town which Boulder is twinned with in Tajikistan and was beautiful.  Lunch matched the promise of the building.  We headed back to our shed after a little post-lunch pottering in a delightful bookstore feeling sated and cheery.  We spent the rest of the afternoon very delightfully on the patio with our books and then got an Uber to a faraway lake in the late afternoon to do a little paddleboarding on Boulder Reservoir.  This proved delightful. We Ubered home and I made dinner and then lay in our garden hammock with my book whilst Layla washed up.  Later that evening, we meandered down to a nearby venue for an open mic comedy night.  This was a combination of brilliant and hideous.  It was hideous because there were only three people in the audience (including me) who weren’t performing – and the performers weren’t terrific.  And it was brilliant because I talked Layla into signing up and doing a story. She was unsurprisingly the best performer of the night and I felt proud. 

Next morning, we woke up to the sound of an alarm clock.  We’d decided to make sure we were up and about early to avoid the midday heat. We more or less succeeded, and were in Eldorado State Park (known as Eldo by the locals) before 9.  We took a lovely trail called Rattlesnake Gulch uphill (well, lovely other than the uphill aspect of it) which gave us amazing views of the Rockies, the river, and took us to an overlook of the Continental Divide and past the ruins of a hotel which had been burned down in 1916 (we sniggered unkindly at less than 100 years being deemed worthy of archaeologists’ attention, but still enjoyed the vision of a glamorous hotel in the mountains with fountains and the like).  Suspicious of the chances of getting any phone signal to summon an Uber at the place we’d come from, Layla came up with an excellent hike which took us closer to town along a flat path through meadows. Sure enough, we hopped out on a deserted road, summoned an Uber and headed to Chautaqua Park, which everyone had mentioned to us as a must-see when we said we were coming to Boulder.  Our park experience started in a delightful dining room which had been built between the wars and which had a sense of glamour about it (and a tasty kale salad and apple cobbler).  After lunch, we sat in the park and I listened to an orchestra practising and read my book whilst Layla called her parents.  The orchestra was lovely and on a whim I persuaded Layla that we should go and find out whether they’d be performing that night, and the cost of the tickets.  We discovered that by buying tickets which would entail sitting on “historic” benches from the 1800s we could afford to go – and that it was the same orchestra I’d been enjoying that afternoon.  Pleased with our plan for the evening, we went for a tiny hike in the park (which ended more speedily than we planned, when a bear sighting ahead reminded us of our enthusiasm for not being eaten by a bear) before heading back into town.  We whiled away some time very pleasantly in another bookstore and coffeeshop, before heading home for dinner in the sunshine.  We headed out later on (relishing a free bus for concert-goers) and then settled down on the historic benches (which I thought were fine; Layla’s wriggling suggested she did not concur).  It was an interesting programme – Beethoven and Sibelius, but combined with projection of landscape photography from Colorado parks onto a giant screen above the orchestra.  I loved lots of the images and liked the idea of the combination – though I also found the images somewhat distracting from the music. But it was terrific to be there – it’s clearly a local institution and was a beautiful venue.  We finished the evening with a cocktail at a nearby bar and congratulated ourselves on another cheery day. 

We were up early again today, to beat the heat again.  This time, we were off to something called the Mesa Trail which takes you from the Eldo area all the way back through the hills and into Chautaqua park that we were in yesterday.  We feared it might be a bit too similar to yesterday but were also frightened off a number of the other options by the descriptions of their difficulty.  But we needn’t have worried.  The 7-mile hike took us along the foothills of the Flatirons (the mountains round the city) through meadows with lots of beautiful flowers with alas a little more uphill than would have been optimal (though the odd runner who passed us gave no hint of sharing this view).  About five miles in, we were conscious we were running short of water and decided to deviate to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (which is exactly what it sounds like, but is also a museum).  I’m ashamed to say that our first stop was the water fountain and our second stop the vending machine.  But we then enjoyed being taught about what makes a tornado and such like.  Back on the trail for the final 3 miles (NCAR added about a mile to our route) we enjoyed going downhill at last.  Conscious we weren’t far from the place where the bear had been sighted yesterday, we remembered our lessons from hiking in Canada and occasionally broke into song (which obviously scared off passers by, if not bears).  Back in Chautaqua park at last, my lobbying for a second kale salad was successful and we were back in the dining hall.  Layla went for the interesting option of biscuits and vegetarian gravy.  I felt – once I saw her option – that it was one of the few occasions where the salad eater could be smug that her food choice was not only more healthy but also more delicious…

Sore-footed we summoned an Uber to take us the short distance back to our shed for a shower and such like and are now happily ensconced in the bookstore / coffee shop near our home and Layla is sitting with her Japanese textbook as I type which seems an unlikely reward for so much exertion…