TODAY, the third Monday of January, has come to be known in the UK as "Blue Monday", the most depressing day of the year. The idea originated in 2005 via a press release issued by a travel company. Using a formula accounting for factors like weather, debt, post-holiday gloom, failed resolutions, low motivation, and the need for change, they calculated this date to be the saddest day of the year.
HELLO again and Happy New Year! After unintentionally taking off more time than had planned (and missing two Weekend Links in the process), it’s good to be back. Did stop in briefly on New Year’s Day to share my resolutions for 2024, but other than that, for the most part of the past four or so weeks, we’ve been on holiday, which is extremely rare.
LAST WEEK I read an article about a couple who had such trouble staying offline when they wanted to be, that they did the most drastic thing they could think of: they disconnected their internet. They had a landline installed to make calls, and used the Yellow Pages to look up telephone numbers.
WHEN WE wrote about our holiday table setting inspiration featuring ribbon bows (with a little design history included), we had no idea just how many areas⏤from fashion to food and more⏤the bow (define as a specific decorative arrangement of material such as satin, organza, silk) has been adorning.
OUR FIRST Christmas film this year wasn't actually one of our usual old favourites (Christmas Vacation for P, The Holiday for me⏤although we've seen them both so much now that we mainly put them on as background ambience), but The Holdovers...
I DON'T KNOW what it is about Kings Cross that makes us want to join long queues for food, but this weekend, we did it again. This time, it was for dim sum and you don't even want to know how long we waited. We were tempted to leave a few times, but the promise of the best dim sum in London was too much, so we stayed.
ON THURSDAY we took the long train journey north to Scotland. It's normally a five-hour trip, but there was a delay, so it took a little over six and half hours before we finally arrived in Glasgow. It was marvellous to be there again⏤it felt like it'd been a long time.