One night in Wales

Girl interrupted, a naked swim and Schrödinger’s milk.

Detail from Avercamp’s A Winter Landscape — almost as craggy as Wales.

Joel and I had a rare childfree weekend and went to Snowdonia.

On the drive up, we listened to an episode of No Such Thing As A Fish. There was a bit in it about Formula 1 drivers losing twenty metres of road every time they blink.

Imagine if you lost twenty metres of road every time you blinked. Imagine how much you’d miss.

Turns out, because of this, Formula 1 drivers all end up doing their blinks at the same time, on the same long straight stretch of the track. They blink at the same time, when there’s something they can afford to miss.

I do that too. I’ll think to myself: I can afford to miss this train ride, this meeting, this boring lunch.

Blink. Gone.

Other times, I’ll blink and another year has passed. There’s so much I’ve missed. Do I remember each school run in October, how the sky looked last Tuesday or how many disappointing bacon rolls I’ve eaten in Pret over the course of my life (way too many)?

Nope. I’ve blinked. They’re gone.

Our brains fill in the gaps where we blink, at the edges of our vision. Our Generative AI brains generate made-up filler, all around the edges, where we can’t quite see.

Boodsy

just pointed out the dangers of ceding control of all that liminal brain space — putting our brains in the hands of our tech bro overlords.

Cydney Hayes

, in this brilliant piece I restacked, told us to “make experiences offline”.

She said:

“It is a lot more difficult for the elite to capture you when you are not a set of user data but a real breathing, sweating, thinking person, taking up space in a room with your thick legs.”

That’s why the times when I put my phone down, go outside and ringfence my sweaty self are the times my brain doesn’t blink. Those are the times that remain inked and clear, vibrant and alive.

This weekend in Wales was one such time. This weekend, I took up space offline. I made experiences. I exercised my thick legs.

It remains so clear I can chart a single 24-hour stretch almost to the hour. To the minute.

Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

5pm

Packing, we mentioned to each other all the things we should remember to bring: pillows, towels, camp chairs.

Of course, we forgot them all.

We stopped at a Homebase on the way to buy pillows. I’m not sleeping in the back of Joel’s car without a pillow.

When we got to Snowdonia, we went into the Cotswolds in Betwys-y-Coed and spent a happy hour perving over outdoor kit. We do this every time we go to Snowdonia now, as a matter of ritual. Touch all the things, consider the ergonomics of down and Primaloft, natural and synthetic fibres. Various weights of merino. Boot tread. Locking carabiners.

It’s dork paradise.

Joel bought an expensive camp stove, and I a lightweight towel robe. In each case: items we definitely wanted but definitely didn’t need.

The towel robe was the last one in stock.

Joel made a face and grumbled.

“I want one of those.”

6pm

In the shop, picking up a few car-camping essentials (milk, coffee, hot chocolate), we got chatting to the guy behind the till. He was wearing a technical beanie and a light down jacket. He looked fit and healthy, like he runs up Snowdon each morning, for a lark.

He scanned our instant hot chocolate and said, conversationally:

“I don’t eat sugar. Gave it up a year ago.”

“Oh. Right.” I’m not sure whether to congratulate or commiserate.

“Was giving me headaches and that.”

“I gave up coffee for a bit.” Joel joined in. “But then I stopped.”

“Stopped coffee?”

“No. Stopped giving it up.”

“Yeah mate, I feel you. I couldn’t give up coffee. Sugar is fine but not coffee.”

I told them I need sugar and coffee, both, at all times.

That was pretty much the end of the conversation.

7pm

At our campsite, we put the milk outside the car, in front of the tire, to keep it cool.

About twenty minutes later, we forgot it was there and drove off for dinner.

Joel remembered a couple minutes later.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“The milk.”

“What about it?”

“It was in front of the tire.”

“Did we run over it?”

“I don’t know. We wouldn’t know because we wouldn’t have felt it. Fuck. We need more milk.”

“It might be fine.”

“It might be. Maybe we missed it. But also maybe there’s a squashed carton of milk on the side of the road, flat as a pancake.”

“Hmmm.” I’m picturing this. “Yeah. I don’t know.”

“Impossible to know. It’s Schrödinger’s milk.”

“Ok, well, let’s just get more.”

“Yeah.” He’s quiet for a bit.

Then:

“Let’s go to a different shop. We can’t go back to Mr I-Never-Eat-Sugar and tell him we ran over our milk.”

8pm

We went for pizza. There was a box of rolled-up blankets for customers sitting outside. We took two each, one to sit on and one to wrap round legs.

It was one of those places where you make your order at the window, take your ticket and wait for your number to be called.

I watched the process in action and it was something else. British people at the pizza window were incredible.

Someone’s number would get called: 74, your pizza is ready.

They would spring up from the waiting benches, bound in the direction of the window … and then stop, about five feet short.

There, they would hover.

Now, imagine this in America. You can’t, right?

In America, your number gets called and you go straight to the window, brandishing your ticket. You don’t hesitate, you don’t prevaricate. You collect your fucking pizza. If no one’s there, you stick your head in through the hatch: yoo-hoo, number 74, you just called me, hello?

But not here, not in the UK. Here, even with the ticket number that’s just been called, people seemed strangely… unempowered to stride to the window and claim their rightful pizza.

Instead, they would wait for the woman to call their number again. Wait until she looked up and leaned out questioningly to all the people waiting, repeating: number 74?

Then — only then! — would they advance hesitantly, with a shy, courting smile, and apologetically accept the pizza they’d already paid for.

I pointed this out to Joel. “I don’t get it. It’s like: your ticket’s just been called, it’s ok. You can go to the window and claim it. It’s yours. What are they all waiting for?”

“I don’t know.” He considered it. “I think maybe we’re just a very insecure nation.”

After we finished eating, he bounded off to fill our water bottles.

I stood to join him.

He watched as I dropped my blankets back into the box. I thought to myself: he’s so British and polite, I bet he folded his.

We walked back to the car, quiet.

Then, he said:

“I rolled my blankets back up.”

9pm

Back at our campsite on the lake under Snowdon, stepping out of the car feels like stepping into the inkiest of blacks — but, after a minute, my eyes adjust and I can see so much.

The car is parked just off the main road, a very minor two-lane affair that skirts the lake beside the highest mountain in Wales. It’s quiet and peaceful.

The moon is up and almost full; the clouded sky, a patchwork of greys. I pick my way down to the edge of the lake. After a moment, free from the artificial lights of the car, the outlines of a cliff appear and the lights of several other camps strung along the far shore of the lake opposite.

There’s a tawny owl calling from our end of the lake. Hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo. After awhile, it’s answered by another, much further off. [hoo-hoo-hoo hoo-hoo]

Taking up my phone to write down a thought instantly blots out the rest of the world. The cliff, the sky, the lake: gone.

My phone is like one giant brain-blink.

I called to Joel, still up by the car, fiddling with the posh new camp stove.

“It’s so bright tonight. There’s so much light.”

“Mmm.”

In the car on the way up, we toyed with all the different things you can express with mmms in various tones: surprise, incredulity, delight, acquiescence, querulousness, demurral. Try it sometime. There’s an incredible amount you can communicate with just that one consonant, falling, rising or falling-rising.

Or flat. I added inattentiveness to the list.

After while, the far-off owl faded completely. The one near our campsite persisted, calling to his friend, for a very long time without an answer.

1am

The car turned itself on.

“Joel, what the fuck was that?”

“Mmm? Oh, it’s working. Cool. I scheduled the heating to come on.”

He rolled around for a moment.

“I need a wee.”

A lengthy process of dressing to go stand by the car and have a wee ensued.

By the time he got back, I needed a wee too.

“I’m going for a wee.”

“Don’t go on the grass. I just went there.”

“Ok, don’t look.”

I went around the corner of the car and started.

“Someone’s coming.”

“What?” I looked up and saw headlights, sweeping around the bend.

Now, pause a moment here.

It’s 1am, on one of the most remote roads in the country. Someone, perhaps a whole car full of someones, is coming past at the precise moment I squat down for a wee roadside.

I panicked and half rose, wetting my ankles.

“What the fuck? Joel, what do I do?”

“Hide.” He closed the car door.

I clamped down as hard as I could and hoisted trousers, crouching awkwardly beside the car. The lights flashed past and I wondered briefly if they can see me, a dark figure trying to hide by a parked car. I wondered if they will raise the alarm. Police searchlights and megaphones danced through my mind.

When the coast was clear, I tried to resume my piss but the moment was gone.

Back in the car, Joel was incredulous. He handed me a water bottle to rinse my piss-soaked feet.

“I can’t believe your luck.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

“No, really. There hasn’t been a car pass us for hours.”

“No. There hasn’t.”

“There probably won’t be another one again for hours.”

“Nope.”

“It’s like they waited for you.”

“Indeed.”

We laid down and he was quiet for several long minutes.

Then he started laughing.

“Honestly, every minute that goes by without another car just makes it funnier.”

“Stop it.”

“Think about it. In a six-hour window from 12am til 6am, I wonder what the odds are of a car going past at the exact moment you chose to piss.”

“Please stop.”

“I’m going to work it out.” He pulled out his phone. “Say you divide it into 30-second time slots…”

After some complex calculations, he determined the odds were roughly 750 to 1.

8am

The next morning, there still hasn’t been a car.

“Time for a swim.”