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 ...
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.
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 ...
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) ...
THIS WEEKEND WAS a whirl of films and books and music, all set to the backdrop of a roaring fire, the cottage cosy while outside, leaves fell. We've been talking a lot about everything that has been going on in the world and it can be a bit overwhelming to think about it all, but right now ...
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 ...
ON FRIDAY there was a salon appointment in the city, so we decided to spend the day. We stopped in for flat whites at our favourite coffee shop, did a little shopping, visited the art gallery and stopped in for oysters at a fancy food hall ...
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 ...
AWOKE ON SUNDAY morning believing that it was Monday, already in the sleepy morning cobwebs of my mind planning ambitiously, the week ahead before P let me know that it was Sunday. Immediately all thoughts of industry were forgotten and an easy, somnolent mood set back in. It's all mindset, you see, and for some inexplicable reason, I'd lost an entire day and gained it back again just in time to fully enjoy an "extra" day of the weekend
THERE IS AN URGENCY to life here in the UK, that we didn't find in Spain and it seems to be directly dependent on the weather. It's an urgency that's not only sensible, but necessary to help manage the disappointment that will inevitably come during the course of a British summer ...
AT THE END of last week we went to Scotland to visit P’s grandmother for the first time in months due to the lockdown. It was wonderful to see her again, as well as neighbours who popped in, but we all continued to keep two meters apart and wore masks to every shop we visited ...
THIS PAST SUNDAY we booked in for lunch at our favourite pub for the first time in many months. There is a rose garden with socially distanced tables set up and a very efficient system in place that made us feel comfortable and safe venturing out into the world again after so many weeks of lockdown.
