Day Trip to Rye and Camber by Brompton Bike and Train

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I bought a bike a couple of months ago. I cycled a bit at university, but living in a small, second-floor flat in London with nowhere to safely keep a bike and the busy London roads put me off cycling in The Smoke. As lockdown progressed, however, I felt increasingly limited in the places I could visit on foot, and I finally pushed the boat out and bought a folding bike: a Brompton B75, to be more exact.

Three Speciality Coffee Shops To Try in Brighton and Hove

It's been six years since my last post about the speciality coffee scene in Brighton and I've been meaning to do an update for some time. One of the Brighton and Hove coffee spots that has long been on my list is Pharmacie Coffee Roasters, whose coffee I've enjoyed on many previous occasions, but whose Hove roastery only opens to the public on Saturdays. As I made my recent visit to Brighton and Hove during midweek, hoping that it would be quieter, Pharmacie was out, however. As was Redroaster, a speciality coffee spot and all-day eatery, which re-opened, post-lockdown, two days after my visit.

Sussex Staycation: Beachy Head, Hastings and Brighton

I was supposed to be on holiday in Montenegro this week, but my flights were cancelled some months ago and, in any case, a flexible staycation seemed more doable in the present COVID-19 circumstances. Instead, I went to stay with my parents in Oxford for a few days, where we strolled in Port Meadow, visited a few coffee shops and recreated Molineux in the garden.

The Oxford Caffeine Chronicles: Jericho Coffee Traders Roastery

During lockdown, I've mostly been satisfying my specialty coffee habit by brewing at home, enjoying beans from many of my favourite UK roasters, and then, as coffee shops within walking or cycling distance of my Bermondsey flat started to reopen, I was able to pop by for a flat white or espresso and a sweet treat of some form. For the most part, these are coffee shops I have already blogged about, so I've primarily been posting about these visits on my Instagram.

Lockdown Lit: My Five Favourite Books in June 2020

1. Silver Sparrow — Tayari Jones

Like many people, I enjoyed Tayari Jones's acclaimed 2018 novel An American Marriage, and a friend recently recommended I check out Silver Sparrow, which was published in 2011. Silver Sparrow tells the story of two sisters, Dana and Chaurisse, growing up in Atlanta in the 1980s. They are the same age and have a lot in common, but there's a catch: their bigamist father James Witherspoon married Dana's mother Gwen out of state having already married Chaurisse's mother Laverne years earlier. And although Dana knows who her father is and spends time with him in private, this secret must be closely guarded. The asymmetry of information results in dramatic irony in the second half of the novel, when the narration shifts from Dana to a blissfully unknowing Chaurisse.