The One-Hour Market Morning

I have to pay attention to how much energy I have.

That means there are days when I would genuinely like to get out of the house, but the thought of turning that into six hours of being somewhere is enough to make staying home feel more sensible.

The market morning works because it doesn't ask very much from me.

There is no pressure to make the drive worthwhile.

No list of things we need to see while we are there.

No slightly ridiculous sense that, because we have left the house, we should squeeze every possible experience out of it.

We can simply go for an hour or so.

Walk between the stalls.

See what is there.

Buy a beautiful bunch of flowers.

Sit down for coffee if we feel like it.

Then drive home.

A small plan is still a plan.

I almost always love bringing something home from an escape.

Not a souvenir in the traditional sense.

Something that carries the outing into the house.

On a market morning, that is often flowers.

They are completely ordinary. They are also one of those purchases that can alter a room immediately.

You go out with an empty hand and come back carrying colour.

Then the market is over, the coffee has been drunk and you are home again — but the flowers stay on the table for the next few days.

I like that.

The escape has a little afterlife.

The other essential ingredient is that there is almost nothing to organise.

We live close enough to towns with markets that this can be spontaneous. We can decide to go, get in the car and be there roughly fifteen minutes later.

That ease is important.

Tiny Escapes stop being tiny when they require a spreadsheet.

So I don't think the transferable idea here is specifically “find a Dutch market”.

It is: find a nearby place that gives you something pleasant to wander through without requiring a full-day commitment.

A farmers' market.

A flower market.

A neighbourhood high street.

A flea market.

A bakery and a few independent shops.

A town square on Saturday morning.

The exact setting doesn't matter much.

You need somewhere to stroll, one small thing worth bringing home and preferably somewhere to sit down for coffee.

I think this is the part I want to remember.

It is very easy to postpone enjoyable things until you have the ideal amount of time and energy for them.

I'll go when I can make a day of it.

I'll visit when we have more time.

We'll do something next weekend.

But sometimes an hour is exactly the right size.

It gives you a change of scenery without asking you to recover from the change of scenery afterwards.

And there is something particularly satisfying about being home again while the day is still largely intact.

Maybe there are chores afterwards.

Maybe I do absolutely nothing useful.

Either way, I have had coffee with Bas, wandered somewhere that wasn't home and put fresh flowers on the table.

That counts.

There is another rule here that I like.

You are allowed to go home.

You don't have to add lunch because you are already out.

You don't need to find another shop.

You don't have to turn coffee into “and while we're here...”

The plan can end when it has done its job.

I think we sometimes measure outings by how much we managed to fit into them.

Tiny Escapes work almost the opposite way.

Success is coming home thinking: that was nice.

Not: we really made the most of that.

Those are two very different feelings.

I know which one I sometimes need.