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 ...
LAST WEEK, IT RAINED all day on Thursday and Friday, and by Saturday, cabin fever. So we walked in the sun, which finally came out, and joined a festive food stall set up outside the pub down the street where flatbreads, mulled wine, mince pies and caramel shortbread were on the menu. On Saturday night we watched the film ...
AT THE SAME time that I was contemplating wearing sequins over the holidays even if everything ends up small and socially distanced and low-key, a package arrived at the door containing an extra-fancy pair of sweatpants. Now that I (and everyone in the world, it seems) have been spending our lockdown days in sweatshirts and hoodies, it seems foreign to being wearing silk skirts and strappy heels, or button-up blouses and midi dresses.
THIS WEEKEND we put up the Christmas lights and watched The Holiday with wine and popcorn. Yes, it might be a little soon, but this year needed cheering up, so we're beginning early. We're also wrapped up in the holiday mayhem that comes with tracking down missing packages and making sure everyone receives everything on time and are in the midst of beginning a brand new ...
WE ARE MAKING GOOD progress with fixing our archives and 2018 is nearly complete. It's a long, tiresome process, but as we're in Lockdown 2.0, we have nothing but time. In fact, the past two weeks have been a flurry of activity, perhaps due to the lockdown, or perhaps because the days have been so grey and overcast and nearly all of the leaves have fallen off the trees ...
SOMEHOW ENDED UP in the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, the 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Have you read it? It has the alarming combination of being unbearably depressing, sweet in parts, and insanely anger-inducing all at once, and last night I couldn't sleep because I was so incensed by the plot line ...
I ORDERED an exercise bike online last Thursday, even before the announcement on Saturday night of a second nationwide lockdown here in England. A few months into the last lockdown, we ended up ordering enough gym equipment to turn the spare room upstairs into a fitness studio. But after all the delicious bread and pasta and wine of the last lockdown ...
THIS WEEKEND WE watched Rebecca, the 2020 adaption of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel recently released on Netflix. It's directed by Ben Wheatley and stars Armie Hammer, Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas. We'd plan to watch this film last week, and I was so excited ...
WE ASKED YOU ON our Instagram Stories what you thought of the Netflix series Emily in Paris and you had a lot of feelings. Many of you loved it, while others had issues with one thing or another, but one thing was certaiini: we were all ready for a Sex and the City type series again. And of course, there are all those glimpses of Paris, as charming and chic as we've always remembered, right down to the elevator-less apartments with questionable plumbing ...
THIS WEEKEND we watched Sofia Coppola's new film, On the Rocks, and on Sunday, ordered a Sunday roast takeaway from the pub up the street, since we've stopped going to pubs a few weeks ago now, after the numbers of covid cases began climbing again. It's unsettling times and everything seems up in the air, but we're both extremely resilient and used to going with the flow and adapting, and we have the crazy stories to prove it ...
P AND I ALWAYS HAVE all of these interesting conversations about everything and often I think, I have to tell them this, or I have to tell them that, but when it comes time to tell you, here on Mondays, I can't remember a thing. The world feels even crazier these past few days than it has before (I know it hardly seems possible) ...
P TOLD ME THAT the wife of a film director we know left him after reading Eat, Pray, Love. I laughed because I thought he was making a joke, but apparently, according to the director, that's exactly what happened. What on earth could possibly be in that book to create such a dramatic reaction? I know that right now, living during this pandemic, people have really begun to take stock of their lives, trying to figure what it is they are really here for, what it is they that really want to do and who it is they want to do it with ...
THIS WEEKEND WE watched films and drank wine and skipped our workouts. We also discovered the best sourdough toasties at a tiny sandwich shop in the center of town and went back for more the next day. I honestly can't stop thinking about these sandwiches and can't wait until the shop reopens again on Wednesday ...
LAST WEEK I HAD my first hair salon appointment for the first time in over 6 months. The last time my hair was cut was in April, which I was forced to do myself, using a Youtube video for help. We ended up spending the day in the city, drinking really good takeaway coffee, visiting new neighbourhoods, discovering a lovely pub and finding a kimchi place for dinner ...