P SENDS me texts such as How much bay leaf (I was making refrigerator pickles) or Do you want a mini quiche when he's out picking up bits and pieces at the shops. I love these texts, with their lack of punctuation and misspellings, because they very much showcase how he prefers to get things done, and get them done quickly, rather than worry about the small details when he knows I'll know what he means.
THIS WEEKEND was a working one, as we have the first part of a brand collaboration due in the next few days and the second due at the beginning of next week. There has been creative direction and storyboarding, photoshoots, styling and editing.
THE NEW OVEN was delivered last week, and it's been sitting in the middle of the kitchen for days, as P thought he might get electrocuted if he installed it himself after watching one too many Youtube videos advising the hiring of a qualified electrician if you don't know what you're doing. I had a feeling it wasn't as complicated as he was making it out to be, but we tried to ask around anyway to see if anyone knew any electricians who could do it on short notice ...
WE'VE BEEN in hibernation mode for the past few weeks now, many cups of coffee on chilly mornings, cashmere sweaters and puffer vests and tall leather boots making regular rotations on these wet, windy days. All is cosy indoors though, with candles and lamplight and there's something about autumn weather that's perfect for staying in and getting a lot of work done without being lured outside by sunshine and good weather. These days lend themselves to productivity and organisation and watching old films when the work is done ...
HAVE BEEN caught up in the fifth season of The Crown during daily cardio and then immediately googling all the events afterward to see it they really happened. This weekend we've been absorbed in an all-consuming project and also making plans for the holidays and P's been rather excited about the World Cup ...
JUST STARTED watching Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Le mépris this weekend and will tell you if it's as good as everyone says. If you've been at The Shop recently, you'll know that we've been busy⏤we just opened a new print shop (with many more pieces to come!) and have added beauty products to our line-up. They're vegan, organic, and handmade in Auvergne.
IT'S BEEN WILDLY blustery for days now, leaves blowing everywhere and here, cosy with candles and a fire all weekend long. We watched an old Italian giallo film from the sixties. It wasn't nearly as good as Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) but it was entertaining and interesting, as I'd never watched anything in that genre before.
AT THIS MOMENT, the room smells like cool and smoky autumn air after a cosy bonfire. We're burning Embers & Ash, one of the new fragranced candles that arrived today and it's strange trying out a different scent from Gardénia, our longtime favourite and the only candle we've ever burned for years. But it's a nice change and it's definitely cosy ...
WE HAVE AN unexpected bank holiday today due to the queen's funeral, which marks the end of what has been a whirlwind of non-stop activities leading up to this point, all exhaustively covered by the media. Things reached peak Britishness on Wednesday of last week when Sky News set up a live cam so that we could watch people queue in real time ...
ON THURSDAY and Friday of last week, we took a quick trip to Glasgow to take care of a few things. On Thursday night, after we got back to the hotel, it was late and rainy and a terrible night to decide to go traipsing to the West End to try to find a place to eat. We ended up at Rioja, a tapas restaurant in Finnieston ...
BY NOW YOU'VE heard of Quiet Quitting, as it's been mentioned by every major news outlet for the past month or so. Like everything these days, it's a term that's attributed to a Gen Z TikTokker and it means no longer going above and beyond at work, but doing only what you've been hired to do and nothing more. In other words, common sense. It's the way I've handled all of my jobs, long ago when I had actual jobs and hadn't started TIG yet.
WE HAVE BEEN eating salads and chick peas and tofu and taking many vitamins (especially B12) and tomorrow, it will be a month since we've had any alcohol. It's a reset of sorts, and it's been good to get things back on track after so many hot summery day indulgences. Last Wednesday we went up to Scotland to visit P's 94-year-old grandmother and on the way home, stopped for dinner in a small town in Cumbria that we'd been to once before, but only briefly ...
OUR FACES are golden on noses and cheekbones, our shoulders bronzed from the past week of hot summery weather. Just as we promised, we spent every single day outdoors, working on camp chairs in new exotic locations throughout the week and ending with dinners on the back terrace on the weekend. Once, we even had a barbecue along the river, our first and possibly only of the summer?
TWO WEEKS AGO, when we were in Edinburgh meeting up with P's brother, I got terrible blisters on my feet wearing the new espadrilles I'd ordered a few days earlier. I was really surprised (and a little confused) because I've had many pairs of espadrilles before and none of them ever gave me any trouble. I thought that maybe I should have broken them in more before the trip, but then I read recently about how many people have been having similar foot trouble getting back into regular shoes again after three years of wearing slippers, trainers, and other comfortable footwear during lockdown ...
