A Cosy Weekend Away

A weekend I didn’t illustrate, and nobody called me Mum

A weekend I spent doing what I love most…

The rain is pouring, not an overstatement, quite literally buckets of water are landing moment after moment. I’m rushing from my car in the dark. The hems of my jeans soaked. The pull of plastic wire is slicing through my palm as I haul a net bag of heavy logs for the host declared we must fetch our own. My weekend bag thrown over my shoulder, threatening to fall off at any moment. I am approaching what has been a near impossible to locate Air BnB and with relief I discover the keysafe right next to the door. I turn the key and let myself in. All there is left to do is light the fire, open some wine and my book and await the imminent arrival of my second soulmate - the one I haven’t married but am lucky enough to call my best friend. She won’t be long.

If in life you find a friend who shares your passion for a long walk and a pub fire, keep her safe and close for she is special. Sadly mine lives 400 miles away so we don’t get to indulge as often as I would like. This month we united, joining our woolly socks together by the fire in Derbyshire. A little village called Milford in an old 18th century mill workers cottage. It’s somewhere between our Yorkshire and Hampshire homes and turned out to be a wonderful place in which to indulge in some log burning-book reading-pub walking-loveliness. A cosy blanket of a weekend. And whilst the rain hammered hard there was break enough to make it to the most wonderful old pub. I will always follow the philosophy that the older something is the better, and a ramshackle old building with a huge open fire and beams that would never have been straight 300 hundred years ago is like walking into paradise for me. And so there we sat, cider and pork pie in front of us, happy as clams and warm as toast, only to chatter our way home at 10pm, blindly feeling our way through tree lined footpaths. Is that not the perfect way to spend a Saturday?

Let me rewind a little, for before the walking to the pub began, the pair of us, being the cultured 33 year olds that we are did venture for a little learning at the Museum of Making in Derby. The city noise and the city scape of brutalist buildings soon had our insides feeling misaligned and the call of the country mud path was heard, and promptly answered.

And the Sunday I hear you ask? Well what do you think two tired harassed working Mums would do? We stayed in bed late of course, we got up and drank tea in our pyjamas and chatted some more. We showered, Dressed, cleaned up, stripped the beds, grabbed what remained of our un-burnt logs and left feeling better than we had in a good while. A pretty coffee shop stop before we sadly parted ways for another 6 months.

Here’s to more of this. May we continue until we’re in our retirement homes and then let it be the same one as you my darling best friend.

Inevitably, reality must and does resume. Tyres on the drive, sleeping children a quick kiss and a whisper “sweet dreams” and then it’s press play on my life as an illustrator, sat on the floor folding greetings cards at 11pm.