It was such an extraordinarily absorbing piece of culinary theatre that for that moment, I kind of stopped feeling both sorry for myself, and self-concious that I was dining alone (“err… but you’ve never felt self-concious about anything”). I was simply there – fully-present in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Bordeaux, on my first holiday without him in thirty-two years. (“WTAF! You do know it’s me in the italics, don’t you??”)
We would travel everywhere together. Thirty-two glorious years of shared itineraries and negotiated hotel choices, then endless bickering over menus and cocktail lists. Repeated in-jokes that nobody else would ever understand. Correcting room-service hot chocolate with the bottle of duty-free brandy we’d hidden in the wardrobe. And then exploring just how many episodes of the Golden Girls was “enough for one night” before falling asleep with the telly on (turns out, about three #trufact).
But then in late 2024 the cancer came for him. It was aggressive, cruel, visceral and relentless, and a dirty street fighter that Neil would eventually lose to – eleven exhausting hospital-filled months later.
And when he left, so did the joy. Not gonna lie.
My first trip travelling alone
So I chose Bordeaux deliberately. It was somewhere we both knew well and I wanted to a place we had loved together. It was somewhere that every wine list had familiar bottles and each menu a selection of memories. Including remembering never to order andouillette et la salade for lunch EVER again. I’m pretty chill about what I put in my mouth (“stop it”) but this…. this was something else)
But as I sat down to dinner in the evening, I couldn’t help taking note the solitary, single glass, at the only table hat had been set for just one.
I booked a long weekend away, just the four days. I made sure I chose a boutique hotel, the kind we would have chosen together, and for one night I made a reservation at a restaurant we’d been wanting to try back when things were fun. Back in the before-times.
So I ordered and I ate (who knew there was so much teeny tiny tweezered food? Also caviar. Caviar everywhere). I watched them brutally crush a grilled lobster before setting it on fire, and I drank some of the most memorable wine I have ever had. I was having my own experience, at my own pace, on my own terms.
It was glorious. And it brought the joy back.
When you travel with someone you love, your experience is always at least partly mediated by and through them. You notice what they notice. They slow down when you slow down. You see the painting they’re standing in front of. This is one of the great pleasures of travelling with the right person. For that time, you share a life-filter.
What travelling alone actually gave me
But when you’re going alone, the filter isn’t there. You can find yourself lingering somewhere unexpected, maybe wandering down a side street you found by accident because you misread Google Maps (“this never happens, OK? nope. NEVER”) to scavenge for bargains at a market stall. You find yourself eating where and when you’re hungry. You can change your mind whenever you want, and follow something that catches your eye – no explanation, no negotiation. You can eat Pringles and watch Judy Judy (“you never bloody stopped TBF”) in bed whenever you want, even right after breakfast. You are, perhaps for the first time in thirty two glorious years entirely in charge of your own day, and the hotel TV remote control.
There’s also (and I say this carefully) the matter of *other people*.
I’m blessed with an extraordinary caring and supportive friend circle. And I love them all (most of the time… look I’m only human). But travelling with companions can make you a closed circuit. Solo, you’re permeable – and much more approachable. A conversation at a wine bar, or a chance recommendation during lunch, can change your afternoon. You become, in the best possible way, available to the world in a way that coupled travel rarely allows.
Don’t you miss having someone to share it with?
I get asked this a fair bit. It’s always said with genuine concern, and I understand that. From the outside, eating alone in a good restaurant, or standing in front of something beautiful with no one to turn to, must look like a particular kind of sad. A bit weird even. Ewww.
Here’s my honest answer: yes. Sometimes. Of course.
I missed Neil at that table in Bordeaux. But I’ll miss him at every table in every bar and every restaurant for the rest of my life. That’s not something I’ll ever probably escape, and I’m not sure it’s emotionally healthy to try to, if I’m brutally honest.
But life’s new experiences won’t diminish without him being there. That dinner was extraordinary. The wine was worth every penny, the lobster was delicious, and the big burly sommelier was totally climbable (“you really need to calm TF down”). And I enjoyed it – on my own.
We spend so much of our lives sharing our experiences in real time – with partners, with friends, on our phones, writing blog posts (“!!!!!!”) – that we’ve perhaps forgotten how to simply have them. If you’re solo, you have the grace and opportunity to be present and in the moment.
I’m not here to tell you that solo travel is better. Or that grief has a silver lining, because that’s not a trade anyone would willingly make. Nor am I going to suggest that you should leave your partner at home and rediscover yourself, because that’s not what this is about either. You do you.
This is simply what happened to me. My life rearranged itself unexpectedly and suddenly. I had to find a new way to move through the world
And I’m not going to tell you it’s easy or that the empty chair stops being empty. It doesn’t.
But the meal can still be wonderful. The wine can still be exactly right. The sommelier can still be flirty and sexily French. And you might find, as I did, that you are better company than you’d given yourself credit for.
Its going to be ok
Unless you’re a lobster, of course… then it could be crunch time.