Joie de vivre in the face of the everyday!
Begin. Keep on beginning. Nibble on everything. Take a hike. Teach yourself to whistle. Lie. The older you get the more they’ll want your stories. Make them up. Talk to stones. Short-out electric fences. Swim with the sea turtle into the moon. Learn how to die. Eat moonshine pie. Drink wild … [continue]
Why, hello, darlings! I can barely contain my excitement – tomorrow, I jet off for four nights in Rome with my favourite girls! My bags are packed [with silk Dolce & Gabbana shifts and Lush samples!], our boarding passes are printed, and our nightclub tables are booked! Arriiiiivederci, England! There really is nothing like a [...]
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Hello, darlings! I do apologise for being such an incommunicado correspondent this weekend – I was as busy as a bee, what with celebrating beloved friends’ birthdays, cooking dinners for eight, dealing with a stolen phone, and an unwelcome late-night trip to A&E after a failed piggyback incident! Mamma mia! On top of that, I’ve [...]
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Light splashed this morning on the shell-pink anemones swaying on their tall stems; down blue-spiked veronica light flowed in rivulets over the humps of the honeybees; this morning I saw light kiss the silk of the roses in their second flowering, my late bloomers flushed with their brandy. A curious gladness shook me. So I [...]
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“I’ve made such quantities it would be hard to choose which I’d have…” “You’d have to take your favorite one. What is it?” -From Little Women Buongiorno, darlings! I just have to introduce you to my latest love: The Heatley Cliff! It’s an excessively diverting podcast series, set in two tea-and-vodka-adoring ladies’ imaginary country [...]
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Weather-wise it’s such a lovely day… pack up, let’s fly away! LET’S RUN AWAY and watch the toucans from the terrace of an old Boeing 727 in the Costa Rica rainforest!
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“At the table [with good friends and family] you do not become old.” – Italian proverb Ciao, bella! Now that the weather’s finally warm enough to dine al fresco, why not have some friends over and share a meal? I’m not talking about a formal sit-down dinner party, where one person slaves away in the [...]
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Hello, sunshine! It seems like years since it’s been here, but the sun is finally shining and the flowers are in full bloom at last! And you know what that means, don’t you? It’s just the right time for the first ice cream of the season! There’s nothing nicer than stopping by Benets on King’s [...]
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“I shall go the way of the open sea To the land I knew before you came, And the cool ocean breezes shall blow from me The memory of your name.” [PS. Laurence Hope is a pretty fascinating poet. It's the pen name for Adela Florence Nicholson, a Gloucestershire girl born in 1865. She moved [...]
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All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket. All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles and miles on end.” – Shinji Moo Guid eenin, gumdrops! What [...]
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Ciao bella! You know those spaces that feel so breath-takingly awe-inspiring and sacred that you could sit there for hours in silence, just drinking in the atmosphere? Whether it’s a European cathedral or an Egyptian mosque, these places are so full of peace that just being in theme feels like meditation. I definitely think this [...]
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You are great in love. You are bold. My every step is timid. I’ll do nothing bad to you, but can hardly do you any good. It seems you are leading me off the beaten path through a forest. Now we’re up to our waist in wildflowers. I don’t even know what flowers they [...]
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Buongiorno, bella! If, like me, you spent your childhood opening wardrobe doors hoping to tumble headfirst into Narnia [and what child with a ounce of imagination didn't do that?!], you need to read Laura Miller‘s wonderful work: “The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia.“ Part-compelling literary criticism, part-autobiography of a fellow Narnia lover, I [...]
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Why, hello, darlings! I don’t know about you, but however much I adore Kay Thompson, I have never been able to whole-heartedly obey her rallying cry to ‘Think Pink!’ Ever since I was little, pink was always a little too sickly and sugary-sweet a shade – give me purple any day! Hence, I didn’t [...]
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Bonjour, ma cherie! Don’t you just love, love, love high heels? They instantly add a liberal sprinkle of glamour to your garb and a sashay to your stride; as Manolo Blahnik says, “people walk differently in high heels. Your body sways to a different kind of tempo.” Alas, for those of us who don’t travel exclusively [...]
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Hello, darlings! I’m back from Antigua, beloveds – and boy, was it the beach holiday from heaven! The Grand Pineapple resort is possibly my new favourite place in the entire universe. Upon arrival, you are handed cool towels scented with lemon water to wipe away any grime accumulated on your journey there, and a glass [...]
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Something continues and I don’t know what to call it though the language is full of suggestions in the way of language but they are all anonymous and it’s almost your birthday music next to my bones these nights we hear the horses running in the rain [...]
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Why, hello, darlings! I am just in love with Veronica Varlow‘s Danger Diary – especially her eccentric ideas for turning a routine airplane flight into a “party in the sky!” Pillow fights, dance parties and free champagne? Mais oui! What with jetting off to sunny Antigua for a family holiday tomorrow and to Rome [...]
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Buongiorno, beloveds! Phew! I’ve been away from my computer screen all weekend, taking The Boy’s little sisters on a jaunt around Cambridge. The sun came out for us, so we spent a lovely Saturday punting, dropping into GD Designer Style to say ‘hello’ to my dress [with a cheeky post-luncheon mimosa, too - I adore [...]
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Take the thickest socks. Wherever you’re going you’ll have to walk. There may be water. There may be stones. There may be high places you cannot go without the hope socks bring you, the way they hold you to the earth. At least one pair must be new, must be blue as a wish hand-knit [...]
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