The Girl in a Room 2006, by Phoebe Rudomino Above: Phoebe Rudomino Still from Johnson & Johnson’s ‘Imagine’ Total Hydration...
LAST WEEK, during cardio, was watching a film in which two of the main characters were a British couple living somewhere in Italy. Italy, of course, was very much a main character itself, with its terracotta orange and olive green and blindingly sunny skies. It looked idyllic.
There are golden, springlike days peppered intermittently in with the cloudy ones, but we're waiting for a proper London summer, hot and filled with untold meanderings and adventures. I've been having issues with my hair for the past few weeks (oily at the scalp, discoloured, and extremely dry at the ends) and thought that I needed to switch up my shampoos and conditioners, but then dry patches began appearing on my skin.
RECENTLY finished reading Susan Sontag's essay, "The Double Standard Of Aging" (1972) and found it very enlightening. Made a lot of notes, some of which I'll share in an upcoming article, but mostly, thought for a long time about her ideas on the subject, and what it it means to be a woman in today's society.
THERE is a word in Greek—meraki, (pronounced may-rah-key) that translates to “essence of yourself.” There is no English equivalent, but it means doing something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work.
ON THURSDAY we met up with an old friend who we hadn't seen in over ten years. He was in London for only two days and thought we might meet for a pint and catch up. We choose that little pub in Belgravia that I told you about before. It was so good to see him again and we had such a nice time over mid-afternoon drinks...
LAST WEEK was the first time in a very long time that I missed the Weekend Links. And if you're a TIG subscriber, you'll know that it was the first time in years that we took an unplanned week off. But it was all with good reason: we made a major life change...
IF YOU'RE ever in Edinburgh, remind me to tell you about a new little natural wine bar that just opened in the old hi-fi shop on Haddington. We stopped in late Tuesday night of last week, after P told me at the hotel that he'd made reservations. We ate some delicious snacks and a glass of Lamoresca Rosato for me, and P ordered a homemade soft drink.
THE BIO ON Deborah Needleman's Instagram page says, "Baskets, flowers, other people’s houses, the occasional dog, things like that". And for the most part, that's true, except that recently, she began posting images of her own home, a country house in Garrison, Upstate New York, which was published in Architectural Digest about a week ago, and we couldn't help but be absorbed with every last detail.
ON SATURDAY a wild winter storm resulted in a rare red weather warning for parts of the UK. There were extremely hight winds, some places had a beautiful snowfall, while here it was just really windy and rainy and by 10:00pm Saturday night, we were sitting by firelight and candlelight and no wi-fi due to a sudden power outage ...
IT IS A BANK HOLIDAY weekend here, so today is essentially a holiday, but since we feel like we've been holiday-ing quite a bit already in these last summer weeks, it felt good to get back into routine with Weekend Links, workouts and other Monday essentials. This weekend, also finished the Sylvia Plath book I was reading and have started on David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, a much more difficult read, for certain, but an important one, I think. The weather has turned chilly with cloudy skies and showers, and soon it will be cable knit jumpers and tall leather boots in place of white denim and espadrilles ...
WE HAVE BEEN glued to the news detailing the events unfolding in Afghanistan with shock and horror, feeling so sad for the Afghan people desperately clinging to airplanes trying to escape a country that has descended into chaos once again. Sometimes this job is difficult because we know you come here to see the beauty in the world ...
It's 9:00 o'clock on a Saturday night and I'm listening to P's grandmother on the phone telling me about a program she's about to watch on channel 5 called Meghan: The Climb to Power (or something like that). We've just had the most wonderful dinner of cod filets with a parmesan parsley crust and Moules-frites. There's a bottle of cava chilling in the refrigerator ...
I SOMETIMES MISS the magnolia blossoms in London and think of them a lot. Things are slowly getting ready to open again here and perhaps, if all goes well, we'll be able to visit them again, along with the wisteria in Notting Hill. This week we're deep in things from the past, for the vintage Sony stereo that P won on an online auction through reckless bidding finally arrived today ...