Month: September 2025

Weeknotes #138: nothing lost but my heart

Lost luggage, perfect steaks, tango nights, glaciers, and joyful discovery.

Week commencing Monday, 8 September 2025

Large living sculpture spelling 'BA' covered in dense green vegetation and plants, with person - the author - standing between letters in Buenos Aires city centre, buildings and blue sky in the background.
Proof that Buenos Aires is literally growing on you.

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 7/7. (96%). Holiday time. Total steps: 105,183

Life

  • We’d done twilight check-in. We woke at 3 am. All was on plan until the email explained our first flight (to Madrid) was cancelled and everything had to be changed. We opted not to go back home, but spending an entire day at Heathrow was harder than I expected, even with lounge access.
  • Related, I imagine if I were in corporate espionage, I’d sit in the BA lounge listening to all the calls.
  • The flight stopped in Rio, where most of the passengers disembarked, while only a few continued. Somebody had left duty-free items in the overhead locker above me, and they had to be removed before we could depart.
  • At baggage collection, it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to get a suitcase. I was remarkably calm. They were remarkably good at getting it to me.
  • Day one: after clothes shopping, dinner was Parrilla Don Julio, a steak restaurant ranked number 10 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2024. It’s obvious why. This will not be a meat-free holiday.
  • On day two, even though we’d just arrived, we crossed the Río de la Plata to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. Easy to travel. Beautiful old town.
  • Thursday: a tourist bus ticket took us to La Boca, specifically El Caminito, the little street that has become one of Buenos Aires’s most distinctive sights. The corrugated-iron houses, splashed in bright reds, yellows and blues, felt like they had been painted to lift the mood of anyone passing by.
  • Dinner was a tango show at La Ventana — powerful, elegant dancers paired with live musicians, singers and even bursts of Argentine folk. We were surprised by the Don’t Cry for Me Argentina portions, having been told the country didn’t really take Andrew Lloyd Webber’s interpretation of its history to heart.
  • Birthday Friday was a lot of great things, but the chef’s counter at Fogón Asado — a twist on Argentina’s traditional barbecue, with about ten guests seated around the open fire as each cut of meat is prepared in front of us — was a real highlight treat. It’s very up close and personal with the chef and the sommelier. Luckily, they were both lovely.
  • Saturday: a flight south where my luggage kept pace with me. It wasn’t beef here; it was lamb.
  • The week ended with Los Glaciares National Park in Argentinian Patagonia. Stunning.
  • If travel teaches anything, it’s that a lost suitcase is just the first chapter of a much better tale. Argentina might have stolen my heart.

Media

  • After boarding, before sleeping, I watched The Salt Path and The Amateur. They passed a few hours of the flight to Buenos Aires.
  • I am not reading as much on this holiday as I had assumed. On the 14-hour flight I read nothing. At least I’ve started The Janson Directive, and it’s a meaty enough book that it might last the trip and mean the other books were unnecessary baggage.

Buenos Aires: Four Days, Four Stories

What began in chaos turned into a celebration of Argentina’s food, warmth and effortless charm — proof that even the most delayed journeys can lead to perfect adventures.

It’s always been a goal of mine to visit South America, but I’ve never managed it until now. Somehow, we acquired enough Avios points for a return flight to Argentina and so booked a trip that would allow us to explore the country — from the vast, bustling capital city, south to the glaciers and north to the hot, humid waterfalls.

This week we started the journey, and I kept a diary: my own anthology of travel tales. Unfortunately, the collection opened with delayed flights and missing luggage, but it quickly morphed into steak and fine wine. Buenos Aires, it turns out, rewards patience with Malbec and charm in roughly equal measure.

Day One: Lost Luggage, Found Malbec

Waterfront view of Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, showing modern high-rise apartment buildings along the yacht-filled docklands, with a pedestrian promenade in the foreground under clear blue skies
Buenos Aires’ transformed docklands meet modern luxury.

The journey began with more drama than you really want when flying. British Airways cancelled, rebooked, and generally conspired to keep us in Heathrow longer than any sane traveller should be. By the time we reached Buenos Aires, my bags had apparently decided to see the world on their own schedule. But a bottle (or two) of Argentine red at, officially, one of the world’s best restaurants did wonders for morale. I’m not saying wine solved everything, but it certainly softened the edges. Somewhere between The Salt Path on the in-flight entertainment and late-night Buenos Aires jet lag, I started to think this trip was worth the chaos.

Read more about the day on my Blipfoto diary.

Day Two: Ferry Nice Day Out!

Cobblestone street in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, with colonial-era buildings, a white lighthouse visible in the distance, bare winter trees, and parked motorcycles under clear blue skies
Lighthouse photobombs a perfectly good street scene.

As the second proper day dawned, we headed for the Río de la Plata and a day trip across to Uruguay. The Buquebus terminal was far slicker than the internet had led us to believe, and passport control was remarkably more efficient than the tales you can read elsewhere. Colonia del Sacramento turned out to be all cobbles, calm and colonial charm — the sort of place that exists to make Instagram jealous (but I was so taken with the place I didn’t post a picture). We paid for the hotel pick-up, only to discover later it would have been fine (and cheaper) to walk. Consider this information a small donation to your travel guide. In the evening, we discovered the vibrant energy of Avenida Corrientes and Buenos Aires’ theatre district. And no, we didn’t queue for tickets for a midnight performance, but next time we just might.

The diary chronicles our day trip to Uruguay.

Day Three: Buses, Bonhomie and Buenos Aires’ Brightest Streets

Colourful buildings in El Caminito, Buenos Aires, featuring vibrant blue, yellow, red, and green corrugated metal facades, with life-sized tango dancer figures on balconies, outdoor café seating with red chairs, and tourists exploring the famous street
Corrugated iron never looked this fabulous.

We gave our feet a break and let the tourist bus do the work — an unexpectedly efficient way to see a city that sprawls as confidently as Buenos Aires. From the leafy calm of Palermo to the bright murals of La Boca, we ticked off the postcard highlights without ever breaking a sweat. Every stop offered something different: the solemn beauty of Recoleta Cemetery, the grandeur of the Teatro Colón, and the kind of boulevards that make you wonder if Paris might have borrowed a few ideas from here rather than the other way around. It was the perfect combination of adventure and sightseeing, capped off with a tango show that had enough energy to power Greater Buenos Aires’ ten million people.

The diary has more about the visit to El Caminito, Recoleta Cemetery, the Colón Theatre and La Ventana.

Day Four: The Fire, the Feast and the Fifteenth Course

Chef slicing perfectly cooked medium-rare steak on a wooden board at Fogón Asado's chef's counter in Buenos Aires, with plated portions of grilled meat and vibrant yellow sauce arranged on white plates in the foreground
Front-row seats to carnivore’s dream show.

The finale of this leg of the trip came, appropriately, with fire. My birthday dinner turned into a culinary marathon that blurred the line between “meal” and “endurance event”. Fifteen courses later, I concluded that Argentine chefs possess brilliance, an ability to withstand the heat of a volcano, and a slight disregard for the human capacity to eat perfectly cooked meat. Earlier, there was time for a little history: the grandeur of the El Ateneo bookshop, the stories of Plaza de Mayo, and a reminder that Argentina’s beauty is matched only by its complexity.

The diary for the fourth day of our adventure is on Blipfoto.

We ended the first leg of this trip full — of food, of stories, and of gratitude for every minor inconvenience that somehow made the whole thing better. Because if travel teaches anything, it’s that a lost suitcase is just the first chapter of a much better tale.

Tomorrow we’re heading south. There’s so much more to explore in Buenos Aires. We’ll be back, briefly, next week.

Weeknotes #137: From tiebreakers to take-offs

Lively week of quizzes, theatre, good company and smooth travel

Week commencing Monday, 1 September 2025

A view across Heathrow Airport's car park at dusk, with rows of parked vehicles in the foreground and aircraft visible on the tarmac beyond the perimeter fence. The sky displays soft pink and blue hues as evening approaches, whilst planes and airport infrastructure create a silhouette against the horizon.
The airport winds down for the evening as viewed from the Thistle Hotel

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 6/7. (90%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 69,528

Life

  • Once again, the week started with a quiz. And again, we ended up in the ninth-place tiebreaker (as a reminder, that’s good). The lady who answered ‘Tainted Love’ was too quick off the mark for Ben. Always fun!
  • I had a Christmas planning session with my brother. It’s only just September.
  • Unusually, I had an office day on Wednesday. The journey to the Barbican that followed should have been straightforward. As it was, I ran into the auditorium just in time for the house lights to go out.
  • Related, Sean Hayes is very good in Good Night, Oscar. Lots of discussion afterwards about whether it was based on a true story (yes) and whether he really could play the piano (also yes).
  • Thursday was one of those office days where I said what I really felt and then apologised for it. I don’t think I should have done. But all good.
  • Related, as a consequence, the work social in the pub could have been messy but ended up being very restrained.
  • I finished Friday on time, which must be a first before a holiday. We went to visit a new pub, The Leather Bottle, and it was nice.
  • Related, on the way home, we picked up a ‘hot honey’ pizza and then noticed ‘hot honey’ is everywhere. Is it a trend I am missing?
  • Saturday: is it unusual to admit I find my dentist funny and enjoy going?
  • A lovely lady in NatWest helped me with a banking problem 25 years in the making. All will be resolved.
  • On Sunday afternoon, the Heathrow T5 pods marked the start of the holiday. In the restaurant, it was busier than on previous visits. The planes were taking off in the other direction.

Media