Everyone loves David Nicholls’ marvellously tender and humane new novel, You Are Here, in which two lonely, almost middle-aged strangers embark on a very long walk that may (or may not) change both their lives for ever. But perhaps it has a particularly special effect if you read it, as we did, in the Lake District, your eye taking in the same ravishing views as its characters; your heels feeling, at moments, almost as sore and as blistered as theirs do.
Two days before our longed-for holiday in Cumbria, T’s 18-year-old walking boots finally fell apart, and so it was that we were forced to spend a precious morning in the Penrith branch of Go Outdoors, that great and inexpensive purveyor of all things Gore-Tex – and also of the kind of trousers Michael wears in You Are Here, which unzip at the knee to become shorts should the weather suddenly change (“Is this too provocative?” he jokes to Marnie, as he reveals his pasty shins to the fell). I’d been dreading this shopping trip, knowing I would be greeted by hordes of hardcore males in search of new gaiters, but it turned out to be weirdly and unexpectedly enjoyable, and for this I must thank Nicholls, whose book meant we saw everyone and everything with new eyes: here a Michael, wriggling into a highly technical cagoule, and there a Marnie, rolling her eyes at him.
Then again, perhaps I’m just getting old. Once upon a time, my idea of retail heaven was Liberty or Selfridges. Oh, the hours I could spend choosing a lipstick! But you don’t get service in either of those places like you do in Go Outdoors Penrith, where an assistant proudly told us that she’d done “all the Wainwrights and Snowdon”, and then saved T from buying the boots that looked very fancy, but probably wouldn’t have seen him even halfway up Glenridding Dodd.
Pre-election snippets
Opinion polls are all very well, but for me they’re no substitute for a pre-election haircut. Hairdressers tend to have entrepreneurial, somewhat Thatcherite economic instincts, but because they meet all kinds of people to whose innermost secrets they listen while they work, they’re social liberals, too; and collectively they represent a range of age groups, from the young, school-leavers who work as apprentices, to the older, senior stylists who’ve been around the block. What I’m trying to say is that the salon is a microcosm of Britain, crammed with captive floating voters and a stack of hard-won, everyday wisdom.
I had my regular pre-election cut last Wednesday, and, thanks to this, I’m now certain of two things. The first is that Labour will win. The second is that no one will be particularly ecstatic about it. The bonus, of course, is that my hair is supremely ready for the exit polls and the glass of champagne that may reach my hand come midnight. Say what you like about Prof John Curtice, but not even he offers blonde highlights.
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Grounds for concern
Back in Cumbria, another expression of modern Britain. The little house we rented – the neo-classical lodge of a long demolished stately home – came with a hot tub and (in the words of its owner) “the all-important” Nespresso machine. Both things are marvellous, I’m sure, though we used neither (we bought our coffee at Booths, my spiritual home, and made it in a cafetière). But I would far rather have been provided with some scissors, a potato masher, and a drying rack for sodden clothes – and later, I said so to the rental agency, via email. “THANK YOU FOR YOUR FEEDBACK!” said the thrilled but dismissive bot, which had possibly been on the Nespresso itself.