AT THIS MOMENT, Mark, our internet service provider engineer, is upstairs installing our new service, replacing Alexa and a year and a half of a very slow and spotty connection once and for all, we hope. We are meeting this new year head-on and have decided to be a little more proactive with things, and so far it seems to be working. This week's links are late, late because have been wrapped in mundane administrative tasks that have piled up until they were no longer avoidable ...
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Joined14 February 2014
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SUNDAY was one of those bright winter days that highlights all the lacy frost patterns on the leaves of hedges and those that trail up tree trunks and along the sides of stone walls. It shone on the frosty blades of grass and the broken panes of ice beside puddles on the gravel road that leads away from the river ...
These days feel like they are moving in slow motion for some reason and today, had thought that it was Friday, but it is only Wednesday. I am not sure what it is we are waiting for—perhaps the vaccines are creating a hope that things might get back to normal soon, even as the news here in Britain warns that we are approaching our worst and most dangerous time ever in this pandemic ...
WHILE SEARCHING for a festive wreath for our front door, ended up coming across many wonderful florists on Instagram who we've begun following. The first sculptural garland we discovered was London-based florist Kitten Grayson's holiday installation...
WE HAVE BEEN eating Christmas chocolates for the past couple of weeks already, and may have popped the cork on a bottle of cava or two, well ahead of holiday festivities. The news has been all Brexit and vaccines and an alarming rise in the number of cases (even in our area, which has been lucky so far) and to say that it's been a difficult year would be an understatement ...
WHILE WE HAVE many qualms about Airbnb as a business and have never used them personally, if we were ever to make an exception, it would be for this beautiful one-bedroom apartment in Trouville-sur-Mer. Often called just Trouville, this commune is located in the Calvados department in the Normandy region of northwestern France, bordering Deauville, about 200km from Paris ...
YESTERDAY, WAS FEELING out of sorts, even before realising that it was Blue Monday, the day that's said to be the most depressing of the year. Had thought it was because the new marble coffee table I'd ordered arrived on Saturday morning in pieces, or perhaps because of the constant rain and gloomy skies, but whatever the reason, I'm happy that today is another day and that yesterday is firmly in the past ...
AT THE TIME of writing, Lockdown 3.0 has been announced in England for the foreseeable future, signalling an abrupt end to the holiday season that lasted a little longer than past years, simply because the new year fell on a Friday morning. We decided that we might as well begin work again today rather than on the first of January as other years ...
Not certain why it took me so long to finally catch up on Pride and Prejudice, the 1995 TV series starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. It was just added to Netflix this past July, so perhaps that is the reason. I've been watching an episode a day during cardio sessions on the exercise bike and had no idea it was so charming and can now see why the world has been swooning over Colin Firth ever since ...
We are city people, P and I. Before Valencia and before Edinburgh, we lived in a huge metropolis filled with millions of people. We barely knew our neighbours in the tall building where we lived, and the ultimate luxury was having an elevator all to ourselves on the way up to our condo after a long day at work in an office complex in the west end ...
These are the random thoughts floating through my head these days according to my google searches. They tell the story of a distracted mind that clearly is not getting much work done. They tell the story of a year spent in lockdown ...
I AM NOT sure why―when it happens every year―I am so unprepared for winter. The cold. The dampness. The continual overcast skies. And most of all, the darkness. Yes, the days have been, happily, incrimentally longer every day since winter solstice, but tonight, the sun still set 4:17pm. 4:17pm! On Sundays, everything moves a little more slowly ...
IN THE PAST WEEK, we ate a little too much, drank a little too much, and watched a lot of holiday films. I did something that was very strange to my being, a thing very foreign to me, a thing normal people refer to as relaxing. For the first time in a very long time, I did not work for five days straight. It was wonderful, actually.
We happened upon the lovely home office of Atlanta-based blogger Kristin Jackson quite by accident, and immediately fell in love with all of the wonderful details in the room: the architectural elements and lucite, the skirted table and leopard print. But by far our favourite part was what we thought were wood built-in shelving that turned out to be freestanding bourbon cabinets.
EVERY YEAR, around this time, it's a TIG tradition to share holiday inspiration. While this year is definitely not like other years, we still have to make the best of it. And so, this year, we share with you pretty festive wreaths on windows and doors, Christmas trees along sidewalk cafés in Paris and sweeping garlands down balustrades in the Upper East Side; evergreens draped in fairy lights, snow in the Cotswolds and more...
