Design Dilemmas

Episode 54: Styling your table for Spring. How to create the perfect table for fun times by looking at what you already have and mixing it up. Plus three ways to style a table, whatever your style.

This week in York, the sun kicked in. Waking up to actual daylight at 6.30am has been refreshing enough; waking up to glorious blue skies and sunshine has been enough to almost push me over the edge. It’s felt like a long winter, hasn’t it? Especially here in Yorkshire where - now an admitted fact - we are always about two degrees lower in temperature than the South. I have denied this fact for YEARS, ever since we moved here. This is mostly because both Joe and I’s families always like to say how cold the North is compared to the South, every single time they go north of Watford, without fail. My mum has always insisted on a hot water bottle when she visits, as if she has come to Greenland for a minibreak. Joe’s mum always asks for extra throws on the bed, due to what she considers an unacceptable level of coldness. If I ever speak to my mum on the phone and tell her that we have nice weather here in York when the South have rain, I can feel her shock resonating down the line from Reading as if she were standing next to me. ‘REALLY?’, she’ll say, incredulously. Our families perceptions of northern weather verge on Everest standards and it never fails to make me want to immediately want to get out my summer dress and sandals, even when it’s totally baltic. However, I’m now 12 years into my Yorkshire tenancy and I have to admit that there is some truth in this irritating preconception. It’s colder. Fact, godammit.

With the sun above and some - allegedly - even better weather on the way, I was reminded of the heady days of the first lockdown when we were rewarded for our homebound status by an avalanche of sunshine that lasted for weeks. I was writing a book during those weeks and I would get up at 6am to start work, finishing by midday so that I could spend the afternoon in the garden with the kids (two out of three of which had literally FA to do as they had had their exams whisked away from them. The one who didn’t was FUMING). I don’t think the garden has ever looked as good; even the dog poo was regularly cleared away and the borders were neat and blooming. I swept and painted the decking, jet washed the patio and we spent almost all of our time sitting under the pergola. We took to meeting outside mid afternoon with a glass of wine and some crisps, mostly to marvel at the silence due to the absence of traffic on the A166. In normal circumstances, sitting in the garden with a glass of wine and a book was often accompanied by the occasional heady roar of a ten tonne lorry on its way to Bridlington but no, not during lockdown. Weird times, but also weirdly good times.

Anyway, back to business and along with the sunshine and nice bright mornings, Easter is on its way and with it, the promise of meals with family and friends, possibly even outdoors if the weather manages to hang on in there. In fact, today the clocks go forward which is great news as it means that my Habitat kitchen flip will once again show the correct time due to my inability to get with the programme every year (although it will still be depicting 2024, obvs). Setting a Spring table is one of my favourite things to do, a love inherited from my mum who was always a high level table setter throughout my childhood. I’ve said before that my family treat table setting as a competitive sport - big family meals are planned weeks in advance and the table design is of paramount importance. A beautiful table doesn’t have to be expensive - in fact, it’s completely the opposite and can easily be done on a budget. I wrote a post a while ago detailing my top tips for styling a great table - here it is again as a reminder:

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