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 ...
AFTER FINISHING Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow last week, was a little stressed about choosing the next book to read as that one and most of the ones before were all so good. (This one is a beautiful read, by the way.)
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...
LAST NIGHT I spilled an entire newly-filled Brita over my iMac keyboard and while it worked after the incident, the next morning, the spacebar (Have you ever tried typing a paragraph without a spacebar?), the enter and delete keys, the apostrophe (and perhaps more) were no longer working. In hindsight, should have dried it out facedown overnight, but as it is now, it is most likely ruined, never to return to the way it was. On Friday morning, we left for London...
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…
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.
CAME ACROSS an old (2018) article about how Instagram has killed the art of lifestyle blogging and was surprised to read that Instagrammers are now referring to themselves as bloggers. Bloggers, of course, in the original sense of the word, were those of us with actual blogs (web + log) or websites and also happened to have an Instagram account alongside.
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.
Last week, had a strange dream about an old childhood friend; her name was Kathryn and she had golden hair and sea blue eyes. She would hand me long handwritten letters nearly every morning, even though we saw each other at school everyday. Every letter always ended with an inspirational quote, such as, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” (George Eliot) We were best friends.
THIS MORNING, THE entire countryside was covered in a layer of frost—the rooftops, with their wisps of white chimney smoke, the well-manicured hedges in front gardens and each red and fallen leaf on the sidewalks. And on the hills in the distance, a softly rising mist...
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.
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...
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...
ONE OF THE THINGS we perfected in Spain (and by “we” I mean P) is the tortilla, a cosy potato omelet, which is what we made this weekend. We also made another one of our favourite dishes, Chickpea & Kale Shakshouka―it was terribly rainy, so comfort food seemed like just the thing.