Escape

My spirit is officially refreshed. Blissful escape from the city was exactly what I needed and blissful escape I got.
I am lucky enough to have a very good friend who, along with her lovely fiancé, owns a listed cottage in the villageiest village in Hampshire. I arrived on Saturday lunchtime and we went straight to Winchester for the Cathedral Christmas fair. They'd set up an ice rink in the inner courtyard, around which rosy-cheeked kids and slightly frazzled looking parents hared and wobbled respectively. The stalls were lovely if not shockingly overpriced but it seemed reasonable under the circumstances to pay £1.75 for a jar of onion marmalade the size of a thimble. We indulged in 'genuine' Cornish pasties and meandered through the festive throngs on the high street, enjoying the odour of roasting chestnuts and the distant sounds of carollers from the Cathedral grounds. Saturday evening saw us return to the village to light the wood-burning stove in the cosy, low-ceilinged living room of the cottage. We picked happily at olives and crisps and drank red wine heated in front of the stove before mooching off to the local pub for local sausages with local wine served by a local person.
Sunday, far from being a day of rest, was a day to leap happily out of bed at 9am, wolf down a bacon sandwich and yank on borrowed wellies and a hat I wouldn't normally be caught dead in, to begin our 'authentic country walk'. Up hill and quite literally, down dale we went for over two hours until we arrived at the pub, cold and covered in mud for a refreshing pint before heading back to the cottage to dry off and eat steak pie and potatoes whilst looking at wedding bumph for next year's extravaganza.
I arrived back in London refreshed, healthily tired and happy last night. I heated up a left over naan bread and dipped it in my homemade onion marmalade then slept the kind of sleep I haven't slept since I was a child.

This morning on the tube, the man sitting opposite me blew his nose directly into his hands and wiped it onto his trousers.

Why am I here again...?