Moodboard: The Mood For June Is Wanderful

Thinking of a stylish road trip? …

Hard to remember (or fathom, if you were born in the 21st century), a time when we’d hold actual maps in our hands, planning journeys from here to there. In the Before times, pre-Google Earth, anyone with a car kept a road atlas in the glovebox; it was often the passenger’s job to navigate. In the case of perpetually feuding parents (mine), roadtrips erupted in arguments when we’d managed to get hopelessly lost. Forced to stop at the next garage to ask directions, we’d fill the tank, spend a penny, buy fizzy drinks and question the attendant; yes, kids, before self-service, there used to be someone at the fuel station whose job it was to pump petrol, clean windscreens and give directions. Between 2005 and 2010, satellite technology and the advent of smartphones ushered in the era of digital maps, making paper maps obsolete. With a SatNav, one can programme the quickest route, predicting, to the minute, what time we’ll reach our destination and where the speed cameras, potholes, roadworks, crashes, lane closures and speed bumps will be. Even pedestrians and cyclists can chart journeys, prompted by an automated voice rerouting them should they take a wrong turn. This might be considered pilgrims’ progress, yet consider what we’ve lost along the way by not getting lost along the way.

“Not all those who wander are lost.” JRR Tolkien

After a devastating loss, her future plans upended, a friend spun a globe and, eyes wide shut, dropped a manicured index finger onto a green ridge to stop it, landing on what turned out to be an impossibly charming medieval village in (lucky for her) Tuscany. Picking herself up, she moved there and proceeded to find an apartment in an ancient palazzo overlooking a bustling square, learning the language as she lost herself wandering the walled città’s cobbled streets. If we were to score this as a film, it would surely feature President Obama singing Amazing Grace, as he once did to comfort a grieving congregation: “I once was lost, but now am found.” Would we be as brave, or, some might posit, as foolhardy to navigate the world without a plan, sans map? Destination: unknown. Pulses racing, this might be just the ticket for world-weary souls.

Imagine what you’d encounter on a meandering walk or drive, heading no place in particular, the all-seeing map app no longer the boss of you. Notice what you’re noticing: here, a fire engine red cottage door framed by blousy blooms of purple clematis, there, a postage stamp of a terraced house front garden redolent of lavender and rosemary. Catch the Piña Colada scent of golden gorse before you catch sight of the gnarly shrub punctuating the verge. Breathe in hedgerow honeysuckle. Peek into a bird’s nest – empty. Admire a handsome stranger. Follow a cat bounding across a street. Kick a deflated football. Look up: is that a hawk? How keen a hawk’s vision must be, to spy a field mouse a hundred feet below. I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with A: allium, apple tree, Arnotts. B: bumblebee, butterfly, Brown Thomas. P: pheasant, poodle, puddle. Suddenly, the neighborhood you thought you knew like the back of your hand becomes as exotic as, say, Sicily. In June, why not ditch maps altogether and go for a wander? You may soon find you have arrived at your destination. @susanzelouf