As sad as I was to leave France, coming to England felt great because I knew I would see Lily. She seems to have firmly settled in England so it’s up to me to get there to see her. It is hard realizing that she won’t be coming home for school holidays and Matthew and I have been determined to see her and support her as regularly as we can. That meant in March Matthew flew to see her for a week and I was insanely jealous. But now it is my turn. We met up in front of John Lewis on the high street and made a spectacle running towards each other and hugging like we hadn’t seen each other in years. Lily made me a cup of tea after dragging my suitcase back to her apartment. This perked me up enough to walk back into town and meet her friend Brownwyn for drinks at the roof top bar called Becketts.

Brownwyn arrived and we set to drinking limoncello spritz while catching up. Brownwyn is a rare bird and being in her company feels like continuously unwrapping a delightful present. Her friendship with Lily has been life saving for both of them. Sadly I have no tolerance at the moment for alcohol so I was silly and unfiltered within moments. The second spritz seemed a good idea at the time but clearly it wasn’t needed.
It was obvious to me that I needed to eat something or things were going to go down hill quickly. We went to Namaste which is an Indian restaurant Lily hadn’t tried before. Walking to it brought us past a few groups of unhoused people who appeared more impaired than I was. Exeter is a beautiful town but it doesn’t hide it’s people. You see all types on the high street from the very posh to the man vomiting up his breakfast that he had just washed down with vodka. I frequently worry about Lily’s safety but it seems she is quite sensible and able to navigate the town at all times of day and night without consequence.
We had a yummy dinner highlighted by saag and chicken korma and we walked back to Lily’s hand in hand for an early night. Tomorrow we were headed to our beloved St. Ives and we had to gym before catching the train.