“All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner.”
Moby-Dick, Chapter 3: The Spouter Inn
A morning sloping low and quiet among the sphinxes, hacksilver, and harpsichords of The Ashmolean. Eddied by eagle-eyed tour groups and buffeted out of the busy café, we emerge blinking onto the wide steps. Too early for lunch proper, we set course under sun and threatening cloud for the covered market, doldrumming and rolling as we go.
Gulp Fiction hoves into view as we round the first corner. There is no question where we’re going, despite minor objections from my trailing daughter. Books Coffee Wine Beer Cocktails proclaims the shopfront, and I momentarily entertain the idea of a dizzyingly strong martini. But we browse the books instead. People sit hunched and happy over schoolroom desks. The books are numerous and well curated. The Beatles play gently, congruously, in the background. I pick up and put down a copy of The Salt Path three times. Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders, sings Paul, and I figure it’s time for a coffee.
As my flat white is prepared, filling the room with the softly rounded hiss of steam through milk, I enter some kind of Hey Jude reverie, na-na-na-ing to myself. I look up and catch the barista’s eye just as we are both giving it some committed Jude-jude-judying under our breath and we let rip for a moment together. My daughter has never seen anything so horrifying in all the long reach of her eleven years.
I can thoroughly recommend The Salt Path...
Books and coffee... Someone is doing it right! Did you end up buying a book, or did your daughter die of embarrassment first? 😜