#21 A Weekend Well Spent.
A weekly recommendations newsletter featuring my London faves and some things I'm loving that week.
The long weekend breezed in an air of calm after a hazy week of sunshine and heat from the mini heatwave we had here in London. It was a restorative few days spent doing some of my favourite things.
This week’s newsletter is coming to you a day later than usual because of the bank holiday! I hope you enjoy 🌞
Eating
Towpath is one of those places that I think no matter how busy it gets, I think it will always feel special. Maybe it’s the seasonality of it all. You get the chance to miss it, like you do the freshness of spring and the sometimes, seemingly endless days of summer. There’s a lightness. In the food, the canalside location, in the warmth of service. I took myself for a solo breakfast, it was already 20º ish degrees at 9 am, and I sat and read my book in the sun for an hour and a half. It was heaven. I ordered a flat white, fried eggs with caramelised sage on toast and a fresh blood orange juice. A second flat white made it to the table because I just wasn’t quite ready to leave.
After going to see Arsenal at the Emirates on Saturday, Josh and I were on the hunt for a quick dinner, and we managed to get a last-minute reservation at Tofu Vegan on Upper Street. This smoky, tomato-y aubergine dish with perfectly fluffy Bao was delicious.
Doing
Sunday was spent at the spa, and I’m not sure it gets much better, to be honest. We booked the Be Well spa in York Hall in Bethnal Green, and it’s £30 for two hours. We went in with low expectations from the last time we went a couple of years ago, but it’s had a real revamp. The main sauna looked brand new, as did the relaxation area, and they have a small infrared sauna now. It’s no frills and not intended to be a high-end spa experience, but the facilities were really good for the price, and it was such a dreamy way to spend a couple of hours.
Reading
Kick the Latch is a pocket rocket of a novel. It’s fast-paced and intoxicating and completely unputdownable. You’re drawn into this world of horse racing that’s passionate but exhausting and deeply violent. It’s fiction, but it’s based on several interviews the Kathryn Scanlan, the author, conducted with a horse trainer from Iowa. There’s an intimacy to the way Scanlan writes this story, but also a directness and an intentional lack of access to the depths of any relationships. This tension between biography and character is what was so enticing and readable, to me anyway.
Wearing
I’m going to be living in this top from Hara all summer long, I just know it. It’s buttery soft and the most beautiful olive green.
That’s it for this weekend! x