And now for something completely different

Greenwich Village, New York

C O Bigelow

Cafe Reggio

Blissful as my stay here in Chincoteague is, I appreciate that it may well be deathly dull for you to read about ("Today I did nothing again, and it was fabulous"), and as I am restricted in my movements today due to a slight swimming accident yesterday which hurt my back, I thought I would indulge myself in a little New York nostalgia.

Of the many fun things about visiting America (and I had never been before I met my husband), I adore New York, in particular Greenwich Village. The bigger, more glamorous parts of the city are perhaps more impressive, more beautiful; the long, straight, white avenues at perfect right angles are certainly the stuff of (slightly fascist) fantasy, but the cosy, narrow redbrick streets around Bleeker street are sheer bliss for wandering or eating and shopping.

On my few short visits there, I have fallen in love with a small number of shops and restaurants which I insist on returning to each time. Chain stores are almost banned in the area, except for some higher end shops – Anthropologie (which I love) is next door to Ralph Lauren on West Broadway, for instance, about a five minute walk from Bleeker. On the other hand, shops that were made famous in the Village have expanded beyond and opened branches across the country – C. O. Bigelow Apothecaries, for instance (who are giving away a gorgeous huge cream canvas tote when you spend $100 with them at the moment – oddly, getting the bill to exceed $100 wasn’t that much of a challenge…).

Eating and drinking in the US is stunningly cheap and good after Dublin where everything costs the earth and quality is touch and go. I adore sushi (I mustn't be too cruel to Dublin on this count - after all, Aya is fab and wonderfully cheap in the afternoon) and the nicest I have had in the immediate area is at Sushi Mambo on Bleeker (oddly, I have never found seaweed salad in Japanese restaurants in Ireland, but it is everywhere here), after which we always go to Café Reggio on MacDougal – the most divinely old-fashioned Italian café I have ever seen (there is little in Italy itself to compare) or The Other Room for drinks, if we can find it, which is only some of the time, alas (it’s at 143 Perry Street). We also adore Chickpea, which is about ten minutes away in the East Village and supremely cheap (useful when the guilt over the $100 you just spent in C O Bigelow sets in).

The atmosphere in the Village is what you wish Dublin was like. Temple Bar might have been that way if the government had shown more foresight when issuing pub licenses. Despite the trendiness of the area for drinking (I’m back to Greenwich Village here now) there are few pubs or bars visible and you really have to look for them, which is such a relief after Dublin. Whenever I visit New York it is an effort to make myself go to any galleries or museums (after all, how could any museum be better than the Natural History Museum in Dublin?) when I could just pooch aimlessly around the shops and streets of the Village. Alas, I won’t make it back there until January and if there is one thing I CAN be persuaded to do that isn’t Village-oriented in New York in the Winter it is ice skating in Central Park…

(Images with thanks to Benjamin James, Café Reggio and CO Bigelow)

Quiet, empty head

What a lovely quiet morning I’ve been having. Everybody went out to the beach at about nine but I wickedly stayed on in bed, only tip-toeing downstairs for my coffee when the coast was clear. “How antisocial!” I hear you cry, but darlings, remember that I am an only child and have always been rather solitary, so living in a house with four other people is a little overwhelming sometimes, and creeping away to be on my own is simply recharging my social batteries.

Yesterday John and I went sailing around Chincoteague and Assateague in a gorgeous 21 foot yacht called the Bay Breeze. It is one of my more useful (although apparently potentially creepy) abilities to go on holiday with my inlaws to a place I have never heard of but successfully arrange to spend the day on a yacht long before we even arrive. Unbelievably, in all the years my husband’s family has been coming here (ten or twelve, I believe), John has never sailed before, but we both had a marvellous time, and where I failed with horseriding, I think I may have succeeded in converting my husband to the joys of sailing.

When I was growing up, my father went sailing all the time and had a succession of boats – some he built, others he bought to restore and others he bought to sail. Some years he went off to Scotland with a friend to risk life and limb sailing in the Hebrides and on one glorious occasion he brought me too for ten days of sailing around the islands of Muck, Eigg and Rhum. Unfortunately, he sold his own boat around that time, and I haven’t been sailing since, so yesterday was especially wonderful.

But now I am sitting in my favourite place, writing to you and waiting for everyone to come back. In front of me I have the two lovely views you see above, and beside me, the dog (alas the picture is unable to convey the smell as effectively as the adorableness). I almost wish I had more dramatic things to report to my readers, to astonish and amaze you, but to be quite honest, there is nothing I would rather be doing right now, and nowhere I would rather be.

Marrakech seems very far away.

Right now I am stretched out on the couch in the upstairs sitting-room, which enjoys a gorgeous view of the bay through some pines, with a cup of pu ehr dante tea to my left and a box of individually wrapped mixed Lindt thins (which I am methodically unwrapping and eating). The centralair air-conditioning is whirring away, keeping me at 78 degrees fahrenheit (I have no idea what that might be in real temperatures, but it is pleasant). Although it is only half-past two, I have had quite a busy day. John woke me up at around 8am, made me get up, and brought me to a café in the town where we had giant cups of coffee (I didn’t plan to get quite such a large coffee, but goodness, when Americans say large anything, they mean it!). After that, we went for a heavenly long walk with John’s father, as my mother- and brother-in-law, who are both artists, had gone off painting.

The walk was marvellous. Imagine you are standing in the picture above with me and the pink umbrella. You’ll want to get under the umbrella too, as it is very sunny and even my Shiseido factor fifty (which I am even wearing under my clothes) does not make me particularly confident about exposing myself to the sun. Now imagine the heat of a huge Victorian hothouse, like the marvellous ones in the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, beside which we used to live. Next, imagine the sounds of birds, crickets and the murmur of conversation between your two companions. Finally, imagine that you are slightly tired from walking and damp from perspiration and humidity, but that you are essentially perfectly relaxed and comfortable.

After all that, we drove (in the pick-up truck!) into the town where we bought a dozen bottles of Dogfish Head beer, which I am assured is fabulous in every way. I will report back on this tomorrow. I predict that the rest of the day will consist of reading The Plague (Camus, and wonderful), sampling said Dogfish Head on the deck and possibly going for a walk along the beach at sunset. Bliss.

PS: Once upon a time, a friend told me about the time she lost her phone and had to get a new one, with a new number. She sent an email to all her friends and asked them to send her a text message to this new phone so that she would have all of their numbers again. Sadly, many people then went and sent her messages along the lines of “Hi D. - it’s me! Sorry you lost your old phone – I got your email, so here’s my number again. Love you!”. Do you see the problem that she then ran into? Similarly, if you know me and are leaving me charming comments which imply that we are friends, imagine how tantalising it must be for me if you then leave these comments unsigned! I love receiving comments, but do take pity on me and sign them if you want me to know who you are, my loves!

Do I really live in Marrakech?

Right now I am sitting on the deck of the house that my in-laws rent at Chincoteague in Virginia every year. It is humid, cloudy, warm and very beautiful. The drive down here was so far removed from anything with which we have become famililar in Marrakech that it is difficult to remember or even imagine that we live in Africa. I often forget that we live in Africa, so different is Morocco from the National Geographic images of Tanzania and Kenya that we grow up associating with Africa - yesterday I heard my father-in-law saying on the phone to one of John's sisters that "they're going back to Africa next week" and it was quite a shock to remember that that's where we really live!

Are you interested in hearing about Chincoteague or are you only interested in Marrakech? I suppose blogs should be consistent, and it is true that my husband's avid fan-base when he was bored stiff working in an office in Dublin and talking about our quiet life there completely evaporated when his life became exciting and exotic (new readers appeared then though). I warn you though, my readers, that I won't be in Marrakech forever and I do plan to keep my blog after we leave and adopt a new theme. Well, you can let me know if you want me to tell you about Chincoteague and in the meantime I will show you some of today's photographs.

Jetlag, coffee and a world of air-conditioning

Many months ago, when this trip to the US to join my husband's family on their annual seaside holiday was first planned, John promised me that while his parents were having the nervous breakdown about packing the car that all parents inevitably have*, I would be ensconced in our bedroom, with the door closed and a cup of coffee in one hand and Vogue in the other. Now, I don't particularly like American Vogue (perhaps I am prejudiced against Miss Wintour's bizarre hair) but I do like Vanity Fair very much, so that is where I am right now - upstairs in a divine little farmhouse in a suburb of Philadelphia, a house which I like very much on account of its fabulous and comfortable decoration (the complete aesthetic opposite of our new house in Marrakech!), with a cup of very strong Lavazza (how did John make it so strong?) and Vanity Fair (and you, of course).

In a little while John and I will be getting into the pickup truck (I know! Okay, perhaps my American readers won't think this particuarly novel, but I know my European readers will) and following his parents in their car (with the dog) to Chincoteague in Virginia. We have just missed the pony swim but hope to go sailing on one of the days that we are there. I am looking forward to the holiday very much, both as a cultural (and meteorological) contrast from Marrakech and because I love the beach and the novelty of a sea that you can actually go into without risking hypothermia is irrestistable.

Yesterday I basked in the fixed price delight of the King of Prussia mall - evidently I didn't quite believe it was true because I had to go into several shops and buy a number of items before I was convinced (REN skincare, Acqua di Parma perfume, Kate Spade shoes, CO Bigelow treats - they gave me a gorgeous free tote, too - and a Bialetti mocha pot - isn't that a nice combination? The anti-Marrakech). I might have carried out this experiment in New York too and can confirm that suits from Paul Smith and dresses from Anthropologie are definitely fixed price in the US.

Moral, social and ethical concerns of the day: For all my complaints about living in Marrakech, life there (for Moroccans, I mean) is practical - needs and desires, whether material, sexual or social, are on a very graspable level. Nothing is wasted, nothing is thrown away. Here in the US it seems to be the complete opposite - commercial and domestic electricity is used with what can only be described as wantonness, teenagers hang out in shops rather than cafes or plain ordinary street corners, mass consumption is practiced beyond what could possibly be needed or fun and in the suburbs pedestrians are mocked**. Despite the proximity to the King of Prussia mall (a famously huge one with everything from Hermes to Claire's Accessories) there are *more* supermalls going up in the area. They are building a *second* Target near here. Why is that necessary?



*Why is it that no matter how jetsettting and cosmopolitan parents were in their respective youths, once they pass their fiftieth birthdays everything becomes a panic? What does this imply for John and me?

**Seriously - on separate occasions, while walking the dog near the house here, both my husband and his brother have had teenagers lean out of their speeding vehicles and yell at them "Get a car!" - even as a joke coming from idiot teenagers, it's scary that the thought should have even entered their heads, no?

Photos courtesy of the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company and Norman Maynard

Terminally waiting

Airports play nasty tricks on you. You bravely decide not to be seduced by airport shopping in Marrakech on the grounds that there might be *better* airport shopping (specifically Shiseido) in Casablanca but then when you land in Casa they whoosh you off to a "holding" terminal with a tiny duty free that sells only whiskey and perfume (and stuffed camels) and tell you to sit there quietly for three hours with about two hundred other people.

Then you discover wireless outside the first class lounge and feel better.

(There was a picture too, but it won't upload - very slow connection, I'm afraid - you will probably struggle on through life without seeing a picture of me in a particularly dull and full airport waiting area.

O Frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

Finally - after two months of kicking our heels in what is, admittedly, one of the nicer houses in Marrakech - we got the keys for our real house and have moved all of our belongings in! This was a relatively easy process as the two houses are connected, so I helpfully carried the Champagne and the Pimm's while my ever-loving husband lugged the cases and boxes.

The house is as divine as ever, blissfully cool and oh my, but it's exciting to have a house of our own! For those of you who don't know me personally, we were married in December and have been living in a lovely apartment in Dublin for the last while before we came here, so this is our first actual house, with its own front door and multiple bedrooms etc.

Now, as luck would have it, tomorrow, on what should be our first full day of running around in domestic ecstasy, we will be leaving our new home in our housekeeper's capable hands and jetting of to the US (at 6am *groan*), to a town called Chincoteague in Virginia for my husband's family's annual holiday. I will continue to post, but perhaps not every single day, so keep checking in, or subscribe.

In the meantime, I have taken a couple of pictures of the new house, although not as elegant as the ones I posted a few weeks ago, and perhaps with piles of luggage in the corners. Ooh! I can't wait to have our first party there when we get back!