Day 1 - Arrived in London

Always the worst part of travel is the flying. I have done it enough times now to know economy class is less a transportation method and more a hostage situation with tiny packets of pretzels. You spend eight hours pressed against strangers in positions that would get a yoga instructor arrested. My long term financial goals remain either permanent business class or somehow befriending an eccentric billionaire woman who keeps a rotating entourage of rabid feminists for cocktails and in flight entertainment. Think less sugar daddy, more chaos mommy. Sadly, destiny continues to swipe left, so economy it is. And it was a night flight which means I will spend the next two days moving through life like a Victorian woman with “a delicate condition” and access to laudanum. Still, credit where is due. Heathrow moved with terrifying efficiency. Forty five minutes from customs to automated gates, baggage claim, shuttle bus and BOOM. Into the Ibis. Faster than Japan, which frankly feels suspicious. Heathrow usually has all the erotic energy of fluorescent lighting and government forms, so this felt like being aggressively seduced by bureaucracy. After a nap, Calves made his pilgrimage to his beloved Chinese Fried Rice Nazi takeaway. The owner, a tiny culinary warlord fueled by spite and MSG, tolerated absolutely no substitutions. Ask for alterations and he would bellow, “YOU WANT DIFFERENT? GO HOME MAKE YOURSELF!” Honestly? The man had the energy of an angry Roman emperor guarding a sacred chow mein recipe.  Sadly, the Fried Rice Nazi is gone. In its place sits a kebab shop where lovely men happily customize your donair however you like. Kind. Pleasant. Emotionally healthy. Good food too. But part of me misses dinner with consequences. Sometimes food should feel like a dangerous ex you absolutely should not text back.

Day 2 - Taunton

The journey toward the start of something big continues. Today brought a 5.5 hour bus ride to Taunton. Not my preferred mode of transport. In fact, buses sit at the very bottom of my travel hierarchy somewhere between food poisoning and trying to assemble IKEA furniture during an emotional crisis. Diesel buses in particular have a unique gift for making my stomach file an immediate resignation letter. This is why we break up the trip to Minehead, the official beginning of the South West Coast Path, because there is no universe where I willingly spend nine hours marinating in bus fumes. So Taunton it is. Met a lovely silver fox at the bus stop who was on his way to Vienna to walk twenty two days to Salzburg. At 79, he told me he'd retired from mountain climbing and traded crampons for hikes where both feet remain politely acquainted with the ground. We swapped adventure war stories like old sailors. Fun fact, pilgrims have walked routes through Europe for over a thousand years searching for meaning, God, or maybe just a really good pub. Humans have always had this strange habit of walking enormous distances to figure themselves out. We hugged and shuffled onward like two beautifully weathered side characters in an indie film. Then came Busgate 2026. We boarded to find our reserved front row anti-vomit seats occupied by a woman who had apparently entered her final form and chosen chaos. She insisted she got there first. Which is bold considering our seats had giant RESERVED signs on them. Aging is funny. Somewhere along the way your people pleasing software crashes and suddenly your comfort becomes a hill you are prepared to quietly die on. Good news, the driver moved her. Bad news, he drove with the window open and I spent five and a half hours freezing body parts that deserve warmer treatment. But I did not puke. Victory tastes strange. These tiny inconveniences hit differently when jet lagged. They also remind me of the absurd privilege of having this be my biggest problem. The world follows us now. Wars, grief, suffering. We cannot outrun it and maybe we shouldn't. Carry a little if you cannot carry a lot. History has taught us that civilizations survive because people shoulder small pieces of each other's burdens. We were never meant to carry everything. We were never meant to carry nothing. Tonight we're at the Corner House, which sounds exactly like the sort of pub Tolkien might have wandered into before inventing hobbits. There is a glorious Sunday roast, a bathtub large enough for emotional rebirth, and enough tea and Biscoff supplies that I could host half of you for snacks and collective life debriefing. Tomorrow brings another two hours on a bus to Minehead. After that, the walking begins.  Peace out my pretties!  Love you all <3