WAS SPEAKING to P today about how these little musings are becoming more and more difficult with everything that has been going on in the world over the past while. After seeing all the horrific images that come out of Ukraine this weekend, feel like I've finally seen too much. That I know too much to still be optimistic. And yet, can't help but still believe in the beauty of this world, of this life⏤even if we have to look extra hard these days to find it ...
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LAST WEEK WE featured the Hudson Valley home of Deborah Needleman and while we were researching her place, we came across Villa Arniano on Needleman's Instagram: "Back from a week at the house of my dreams—the Tuscan idyll of @camillaguinness. Spent a few days with @jacobwe, @skyegyngell, @davidprior, @holly_gore and my daughter Lily Weisberg who doesn’t bother herself with social media, and then a few days with #camillaguinness, @amberguinness and @macmillandavidmb languorous, long summer days eating (really well) reading, chatting , swimming and napping. I was so blissed out I didn’t take any pictures, so these are lifted from Camilla and Amber’s Instagram as well from @arnianopaintingschool the week-long painting workshops Amber runs here with her friend @willropercurzon"
THE BIO ON Deborah Needleman's Instagram page says, "Baskets, flowers, other people’s houses, the occasional dog, things like that". And for the most part, that's true, except that recently, she began posting images of her own home, a country house in Garrison, Upstate New York, which was published in Architectural Digest about a week ago, and we couldn't help but be absorbed with every last detail.
JUST FINISHED booking a hotel for another quick trip to Edinburgh in a few weeks. It feels strange to continue with ordinary things when the world feels anything but. It's the same reason why you probably noticed that we've been a little quiet on all of our social media channels lately. On the first day of spring, our little niece turns three, so I had the pleasure of spending some time ordering tiny clothing, books and toys to send as gifts ...
JANUARY LASTED a million days but February seems to be flying by. There is sunshine and birdsong, snowdrops, and today we saw a tree blooming with delicate white blossoms. It just as quickly clouded over and there were rainy spells here and there (it is England, after all), but overall, it's been feeling rather springlike. Of course, there are terrible floods again in the south, but hopefully all these weekend storms will pass by soon and we can look forward to warmer days ...
ON FRIDAY, March 31, 2022, French fashion & portrait photographer Patrick Demarchelier passed away in St. Barths of cancer. He was 78. Patrick Demarchelier was born in 1943 in Le Havre, a major port in northern France's Normandy region. As the story goes, he got his start in photography when his stepfather gave him his first Kodak camera on his 17th birthday. He became enchanted with photography, taking pictures of friends and weddings and learning how to retouch negatives and develop film
THE BEAUTIFUL sunshine streaming through the windows is at odds with this morning's news of more shelling in Ukraine and a plane crash in China. Every night for the past week, I have been falling asleep to dreams of war. The nights are frenetic and uneasy, the mornings much more calm with lucid thoughts over coffee, at least until the news cycle begins again ...
CAME ACROSS this quote by Dr. Seuss yesterday morning: “Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.” And it struck a chord because it feels like lately, that we're always waiting/hoping to move past current situations and times and on to better ones ...
RATHER THAN sit around watching the terrible progression of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and waiting for the awful news that seems all but inevitable, we're keeping ourselves busy with work as the distraction of choice. It's also made us realise that we've haven't had a chance to visit any places in Eastern Europe yet, despite the fact one of our writers was from Ukraine...
HAPPY VALENTINE'S Day! Do you have anything special planned? This weekend we finally had a chance to watch Nomadland the 2020 film written, produced, edited and directed by Chloé Zhao. It was, in a word, depressing. Poignant, perhaps to the point of heartbreak. In way though, it also made me thankful for my life and the things I have and reminded me to not take them for granted (ever), just as it made me really think about the future in a way I never had before, being someone who spends life between living in the moment and dwelling on the past ...
THIS WEEKEND WE screened the 1983 film Risky Business on the projector. P has seen it many times before, but it was my first time, much to his horror⏤a classic in his opinion. On Monday we awoke to the chaotic madness of the Oscars slap and is it just us, or is the world getting weirder?
IF FEBRUARY IS a transitional month to spring, then March is its realisation: the daffodils and warm breezes, cherry blossoms and forsythia let us know for certain that springtime is on its way. And while it may still be a little bit too cool to wear a trench coat just yet, we know that trench season is also on its way and we couldn't be happier to leave our giant puffy coats behind ...
P HAS BEEN teasing me about writing my New Year’s Resolutions in mid-February, but that was before I’d told him about all the messages I’d received from you asking after them. It’s so nice how much you love these yearly lists, and to be honest, wasn’t sure I was even going to do it this year, as so far, this new year has been particularly difficult to define...
FRIDAY WE WERE glued to the coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I saw women saying tearful good-byes to their soldier husbands and boyfriends, and Ukrainians forming long queues to donate blood and do their bit for their country. I saw a man at a train station saying good-bye to his wife and children, and when he got to his youngest (who couldn't be more than two years old) break down with heavy wracking sobs, hugging her for what he feared might be his very last time ...
ON FRIDAY WE travelled to a seaside village about an hour from here to celebrate something special. P had made late lunch reservations at a new restaurant that has only been open for less than a year (and much of it during various lockdowns) and we'd heard that it was supposed to be good, locally grown produce and all that. It's one of those charming places that have several roaring fires and wood-burning stoves and promised to be cosy ...