On Friday afternoons, London develops a full-blown fantasy life. Group chats fill with chintzy cottages, scrumpy swimming holes, proper pub gardens, and taste-the-difference tomatoes. The city exhales west, towards the Cotswolds and the Chippings, woodland lodges, windfall orchards, and jam-making: the restorative illusion of country life.
We’ve become frighteningly fluent in the language of escape. We know the country playbook: wellies by the door, wool on the body, a dog with a World War II soldier’s name. A quick walk that lasts three hours followed by cake from a tin, the forcing of rhubarb, and foraging of kindling. Once the kids are tucked and chickens penned, everyone ends up in the kitchen. Rosemary-sprigged gin and tonics. The Aga, of course. Ottolenghi’s Simple lying open.
It’s tempting to roll your eyes; I can feel my eyes rolling, too. “Cottagecore” has become so aestheticized that the British countryside has become more of a mood board than a real place. Don’t we all fantasize about becoming the sort of person who knows their butcher’s name? Someone who buys eggs from a farm’s honesty box? Who deadheads? Who pickles? It’s difficult to simply visit the country because we arrive preloaded with references: Wuthering Heights, Brideshead Revisited, the cottage from The Holiday. Perhaps that’s because it has become one of Britain’s greatest myths. Not the wild, sublime landscape of the Romantics, or Kate Bush, or even Monty Don, but something less grandiose and more aspirational: a place where the Wi-Fi is patchy enough to forgo the vulgarity of emails.
The writer Tish Weinstock’s Somerset pied-à-champ is where Britain’s favorite fantasy gets to stretch its legs. Tish and her husband, Tom Guinness, host a rotating cast of weekenders—friends, extended family, everyone’s children—while remaining refreshingly skeptical of proceedings. What are people really buying when they buy a second home? “Of course, escaping the grind of the city is a luxury,” Tish says. “Being in nature is a luxury. But more than that, it’s about nourishing rituals—spending time as a family, long Sunday lunches, watching my husband cook—I absolutely cannot cook.” Time is the true extravagance when you leave the dopamine metropolis. A second home is a second clock.
Of course, there is a performance to all this—there has to be. Tish thinks that’s part of the appeal. “You’re performing leisure,” she says. We often think of performance in opposition to authenticity, but perhaps they’re closer bedfellows than we’d like to admit. Kids put on the cape before they think they can fly. We put on the walking boots before we believe we can slow down. I’d argue that all hospitality is a kind of performance. Isn’t hosting, at its best and its worst, painstakingly choreographed?
By Sunday evening, the car is packed again. The boots are muddy. The children are asleep before you even reach the motorway. The fantasy dissolves somewhere around the North Circular; London waits exactly as you left it, brisk and demanding. But something comes back with you: the conviction that another way of living might be possible. That’s the real reason we keep leaving. Every Londoner is six months away from buying a place in the country. They’ve been six months away for 15 years. What they’re really shopping for isn’t another house—it’s somewhere their pretending isn’t quite pretending anymore.
Below, Tish offers her own thoughts on hosting the quintessential retreat.
“My favorite part of entertaining is getting ready beforehand. I love the ritual of putting on music and getting dressed up,” says Weinstock.
“We stole these bits of armor from our wedding. The artist Joe Rush from [the performance art collective] Mutoid Waste made all these weird demon knight figures that we scattered throughout the castle.”
“I always like a good cocktail to kick off the evening. If it’s dinner, a margarita. If it’s a lunch, I’ll make a Bloody Mary.”
“I love an all-ages party. You need that tension between the wise old crows and teen tearaways.”
“I tend to ply everyone with drinks to make up for the fact that I can’t cook.”
“Having endless options for seating is key, whether that’s a rug on the lawn or a bed in the drawing room. I want guests to feel free to lounge around. It’s also because I’m incredibly lazy.”
“There’s something so easy about being in the countryside. Time stops and you can appreciate the beauty of nature. I find it very meditative.”
“Tom is a phenomenal cook. In fact, he’s pretty good at everything. I don’t think I would want to entertain without him. He’s what makes it fun.”
“The sound of silence gives me anxiety. You always need a good playlist when entertaining. Playing records is Tom’s way of ensuring I don’t make any annoying requests.”
“I hate the formality of plated food. Family style is so much more relaxed and easy.”
“The key to any good meal is having an array of good condiments.”
“I always find it quite hard to eat at a big dinner, as I’m usually boring someone with a very long-winded story, or I’m too overstimulated to pick up my knife and fork. I usually end up snacking in the kitchen later on when everyone’s left.”
“I love the shift in energy once dinner is over. Everyone generally starts to get a bit silly.”
“I’m such a sucker for an after-dinner game like charades or the name game, especially when playing with family. It gets very competitive.”
“There’s something about being in the countryside which tends to encourage—but also excuse—bad behavior.”
“I love an outfit change mid-party. We have a dressing-up box full of old coats and dresses that people can dress up in.”
“The key to being a good host is being able to relax into wherever the night takes you, then relying on your husband to kick everyone out.”
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