I SOMETIMES wonder what happened to all the people who asked me for directions. Despite not ever really knowing where I’m going (or sometimes even where I am), I am often asked for directions, especially in cities that don’t belong to me, sometimes even moments after I’ve just arrived. Perhaps some of them are still driving around, taking the wrong turns that I inadvertently sent them on.
HELLO AGAIN and Happy New Year! How were the holidays? Hope you had a wonderful time! As you know, we took some time off and it was amazing. So relaxing and nice to actually not work for a bit. (Novel idea, I know.) We even took a break from the newsletter, which we plan on resuming at this end of this week, since there were so many new subscribers while we were away.
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 ...
WE JUST DEACTIVATED the TIG Twitter account a moment ago after thinking about it for awhile. It seemed like a good way to remove a bit of chaos from our lives while we figure out the best direction to go from here, and we might even get a little time back from our mornings ...
HAVE WORKED THROUGH two of the five Jean-Luc Godard films that are thought to be his best, prompted by the French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic's recent death last month. It's been an eventful few weeks since the last update, with autumn walks in the changing colours, saying hello to random cats in neighbours' gardens ...
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.
WAS READING an article about 7 great but notoriously hard-to-finish books and realised that I'd started most of them, but actually did finish one them⏤Thomas Piketty's 2013 masterpiece, Capital in the Twenty-First Century⏤all 600 pages of it, and enjoyed it so much that I'd considered picking up his follow-up while at Waterstones recently. Last week we introduced new candles at The Shop and we had no idea that they would be so wildly popular so soon after launch. Today, two new scents have arrived, just in time for upcoming festivities: Cranberry and Chestnut ...
WE SPENT MOST of the weekend doing art. P took up architectural sketching with markers and pens a few weeks ago, and I've been working furiously on a few new pieces/projects over the past few days. We'll be adding our favourites to The Shop and I've just discovered a wonderful printing place in East London that will handle all the prints of our work ...
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 ...
Read recently that hot rollers were making a comeback, but for me, they never went away. I've been using them for ages, ever since I realised that using the fancy large-barrel curling iron (we call them tongs here) was far too much work and took too long. The only trouble is, now that I have a whole head of icy caramel highlights, I've been looking for heatless methods to curl my hair or at least add body without the heat damage. Here are a few other methods I've been experimenting with at home...
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 ...
