Don’t forget the UN-level mine sweeping you have to do for dog’s turds if you want to find a pooh-free plot big enough to picnic in a London park. I used to live near London Fields and once we had to just give up and go home, there was so much pooh everywhere. Great essay - so many ambivalently happy memories!
Ha ha! Just tried to meet a friend for coffee and cake in a pavement cafe on a rumbling A-road. We were doing fine, lorries apart, until someone nearby started noisily trimming their hedges for what seemed like many hours. We moved indoors.
Transition lenses handing in their resignation…what can I say, Justin?
Brilliant stuff!
Here in Berlin, a city that appears to hibernate for half the year at least, the arrival of the sun, and warmth, is liberating in the extreme, and every one, but everyone, decamps outside…and it is splendid. It just works here, in a way that it just doesn’t seem to at home.
Mind, we don’t have anything like the ‘beer gardens’ here in Berlin that you’ve illustrated…God knows, I’ve sat in many a so-called English beer garden like that one and wondered just what horrors I must have committed in a previous life!
Thank you! I have only been to Berlin once, in the depths of winter, but I imagine with so many open spaces, it's brilliant in summer – even if there are no extremely sophisticated concrete, derelict beer gardens like here!
"forgot to tell your neighbours" haha it would never even occur to my neighbours to tell me they are having a BBQ.
Is that the new Secretary of Defense, asking for a friend
I had a very sandy lunch at the beach today. I salute your entire essay.
Haha oof. Thanks for reading!
Don’t forget the UN-level mine sweeping you have to do for dog’s turds if you want to find a pooh-free plot big enough to picnic in a London park. I used to live near London Fields and once we had to just give up and go home, there was so much pooh everywhere. Great essay - so many ambivalently happy memories!
Hahaha oh my goodness, yes – the unexpected ‘bonus’ of dog eggs.
Ha ha! Just tried to meet a friend for coffee and cake in a pavement cafe on a rumbling A-road. We were doing fine, lorries apart, until someone nearby started noisily trimming their hedges for what seemed like many hours. We moved indoors.
Always perfect Justin, thank you for this.
Oh god yes I left so many things out. LAWNMOWERS for one. Thanks for reading!
Transition lenses handing in their resignation…what can I say, Justin?
Brilliant stuff!
Here in Berlin, a city that appears to hibernate for half the year at least, the arrival of the sun, and warmth, is liberating in the extreme, and every one, but everyone, decamps outside…and it is splendid. It just works here, in a way that it just doesn’t seem to at home.
Mind, we don’t have anything like the ‘beer gardens’ here in Berlin that you’ve illustrated…God knows, I’ve sat in many a so-called English beer garden like that one and wondered just what horrors I must have committed in a previous life!
Thank you! I have only been to Berlin once, in the depths of winter, but I imagine with so many open spaces, it's brilliant in summer – even if there are no extremely sophisticated concrete, derelict beer gardens like here!
I agree on all points (although marrying a South African has made me complacent about what is possible when barbecuing).
Ah well, yes, that's a WHOLE different genre of barbecue!