TINY TRAVELLING

A few recommendations to make you feel like you’re holidaying on the shores of the Med when in reality, you are still on your sofa.

Things have changed shape. Life has shifted. Our worlds have shrunk from parks, streets and squares to our small patch of home, and it’s a little intimidating to wake up each morning with a stretch of unstructured day ahead of you.

But there is good in it, too. Like finally getting round to cooking those recipes you’ve never dared attempt. Or sinking into a bubble bath at 9am. Or spending hours on the phone to old friends, with no tube station dash or lunch meeting to cut the conversation short.

It’s also given us the chance to fall in love with our spaces again, and adapt to our smaller worlds. The kitchen is now the restaurant. The bathroom is a steamy escape room of delicious smells. The hallway is our new gym. And our bedrooms have gone from the place we sleep to the nucleus of our universe; it is now where we socialise, read, work and (occasionally) eat.

Our homes can also be the springboard for exploration. Below is a little list of ways to transport you from your bed; to send you on a trip from the folds of your duvet or the nest of your couch. The world is out there ready for you to get back to it, but in the meantime, you can bring it inside.

Learning a language is one of those things we always say we’ll do. But life gets in the way. Luckily, isolation means hours of the day wide open for sharpening up your Spanish or getting a grasp of German. Duolingo is our personal favourite, and we love their podcast. When we finally get the chance to go back to Spain, we’ll be able to order bread and a small beer like a true local.

And for those self-scheduled language lessons, here is a playlist to get you in the mood for anything that isn’t British.

Watch a foreign language film. You’re feeling relaxed from barely moving and you’re craving the sights and sounds of another world. Enter Mubi, where you can get access to 30 hand-picked foreign films (with a new one added each day).

Ever feasted your eyes on The Lunchbox? Ritesh Batra’s 2013 film paints a glorious portrait of India’s mind-boggling dabbawallah system and leaves you craving spicy green beans, mustard seed-spiked potatoes and daal like never before. Read Meera Sodha’s article on this culinary phenomenon here, and try out a few of her recipes to bring the taste of Mumbai to your table. Flatmate wheeling it over on a bicycle optional.

Read a foreign magazine. Okay, maybe not read. But look at the pictures, and drink in the beautiful, unknown words dancing on the paper. Our favourite is Italian Architectural Digest, L’Officiel Art France, and Vogue Espana.

We are launching a collection inspired by a trip we took last year to another continent. We’ve spent a long time turning these ideas to prints, and will now be spending a long time dreaming of the place we left behind - which in some ways feels like another lifetime now. We love it, and hope you do too.