A Short List Of Things Bringing Joie

What I've watched, bought, worn, eaten, read and lusted after this month, including candle excess, stripy lounging, good cheesecake, dreamy period mouldings and unexpected George Galloway flashbacks.

This weekend, we had a VERY full house with the return of Ella and her boyfriend, Lucas, plus the arrival from the South of my mother in law, Judith, and her husband, Barry. Long term Instagram followers will already be au fait with my in laws, mostly due to Barrys guitar playing and singing which has graced my Stories on many an occasion (you can listen here to him, actually, on Spotify). Anyway, this meant we had a weekend resident tally of seven, plus the dog and the cat - preparation was quite extensive, with plans going last minute haywire due to the effects of Storm Eowyn combined with the CrossCountry from Reading (AKA the most unreliable trains known to man, a service that doesn’t need any excuse to be shit at the best of times, let alone when it’s windy).

Anyway, by 6pm on Friday everyone was here and we didn’t really move very much for the next 48 hours due to the inclement weather. At one point, we left the house to go to the William Morris Exhibition at York Art Gallery but it was such a wet and windy walk, we stopped after three minutes at the little wine bar on the corner of Monkgate and that was that. I did a LOT of cooking, loaded the dishwasher multiple times, made many cups of tea and opened and poured many bottles; we went out for tapas and ate crisps in the pub and it was altogether an excellent few days. I really love York, but sometimes it can feel just WAY too far away from our Southern based families so it’s great when they come up to visit.

But back to my list of Joie and it there’s a fair few wintery, comfort foodie, cosy inspired points on the agenda this week due to the inglorious January weather. Honestly, I am literally counting the days until the dark mornings are gone and I don’t have to wear a scarf to leave the house (roll on 30 March, please). Here’s a little run down of what I’ve watched, bought, worn, read, eaten and lusted after.

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