EVEN THOUGH WINTER comes every year, always forget what an ordeal it actually is. How early the days get dark. How overcast and blustery and how much all of this makes me never want to leave the house until spring. It feels like we're on the 174th day of January and there's still February ...
THERE IS A STORM on the way, very high winds, rain, and perhaps even snow tomorrow. At the moment, though, it is still up swirling about up north in Northern Ireland and Scotland and making its way down. Here, it feels as if we've been hibernating since the start of the new year, venturing out over the weekend only for a quick drink in the cosy pub ...
HERE IN THE UK, TODAY IS considered the first day back to work after the holidays. We were away to visit family in Scotland late last week, and spent the weekend lingering over festive things for the last time, so it's back to work for us today as well. On Sunday the weather was beautiful and we spent most of our time outdoors in the beautiful English countryside ...
HERE WE ARE, on the very last day of the year (and the decade!) and there's a feeling of calm and thoughtfulness as there always is at this time of year. Having spent the past three New Year's Eves in Spain, we're back celebrating in the UK and it's a very different time than it was before we left ...
THIS WEEKEND WE watched two films: Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019) and Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019) and both were really good. Knives Out was fast-paced and funny and great fun to try to figure out, while Marriage Story was deeply moving and heartbreaking and made me cry several times.
THERE ARE ONLY two days left until the General Election and for the past two weeks, flyers have been dropped through our mail slot and canvassers have been ringing the door bell.
HAPPY DECEMBER! It is scarily already the very last month of the year and it's rather shocking how quickly it all has gone. Of course, we made a major move half-way through the year, which may have made things seem to fly by more quickly, and have been spending the rest of the time caught up in a flurry of things―major projects and undertakings, new site and product launches and big plans for the new year ...
JUST FINISHED reading Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow and it was so, so good. If you're looking for a work of non-fiction that reads like a fast-paced spy thriller, then you will love it.
This week’s links include decorating with plinth coffee tables, chic dinnerware for the holidays and the real cost of phone addiction; a Sydney home with a Mediterranean vibe; a recipe for citrus chickpea and brussels sprout salad and much, much more.
IT IS UNDENIABLY chilly, and the fire is on at the cottage most days now. The leaves have turned a bright yellow and the shops are a confusing mix of pumpkins and Christmas crackers. How there can be only two and a half months left of the year is a mystery. It feels like a moment ago that I was writing my New Year's Resolutions for 2019 and now we're on the cusp of 2020...
WE ENDED UP watching the entire series of Fleabag in the late evenings over the past week, preferring, already, to cosy up in front of the fire on these September nights. I have also been ordering soft camel-coloured wool jumpers and a new coat...
WE SPENT MOST of the last week in Edinburgh on business, and have also been slowly emptying out the contents of our storage unit there, which means for the most part of the past few days, have been buried under an avalanche of old photographs and letters, and even came across a diary by my fourteen-year-old self. It’s been strange and exhausting living in the past, but it has also been an exercise in deciding what to keep and what to leave behind, what’s really important and what I really can’t live without.
THIS WEEKEND WE celebrated something special and also tried to absorb as much of the last golden days of summer as possible. For this first September week, we're back and forth to Edinburgh for business and to sort a few things out. We've also finally installed some bookcases to the left of the fireplace in the living room and have begun moving the boxes (and boxes) of books and magazines from the storage unit to the cottage. The floor is currently strewn with paperbacks, oversized coffee table books and glossy back issues of favourite magazines in a pile of nostalgia and happy chaos. Everything that we've been working for in the past few months has lead to tomorrow and we're relieved, excited and exhausted all at once...
THIS HOLIDAY WEEKEND WAS filled with all of the very best things: perfect late-summer weather and champagne at a Sunday garden party; white horses and hilly trails and drinks on flower-laden terraces; late brunches, coffee and sunshine and wishing that summer would never end…