Tem mel em tudo

One week before Christmas, as I was in the process of arranging permanent accommodation in Wandsworth, I stayed briefly in a Hostel in Notting Hill. In it’s common area, the colourful basement of a 6 story building, I was lucky enough to meet a beautiful Brazilian who’s name I won’t disclose. I was reading on the couch as she walked past me, smiled, and began browsing through the book shelf next to me. The start of a Notting Hill styled romance that Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts would undoubtably be very proud of.

An hour later I was at a movie theatre with her, her sister, and another friend. Her sister ordered popcorn but brought with her her own bottle of honey to smear all over it. I brought a bottle of wine and four glasses.

As we left the two sisters were speaking passionately in Portuguese to each other about what I had assumed to be the movie we had just watched. I caught a phrase at the end of one of her sentences, "tem mel em tudo". When I asked what it meant she explained she was speaking about her sisters popcorn, and that that phrase meant "there is honey in everything".

***** is beautiful, remarkably funny in her third language, and kissed me on the street this morning after we got coffee together.

It was 4 degrees, had been raining for the past week, and by all accounts from the locals totally miserable out. But, if I've learnt one thing from my time in Notting Hill, it's that there's beauty in even the most seemingly miserable days.

There is honey in everything.