Five Items Of Note
A list of things that have caught my attention, fallen into my bag or made me happy. Including school jumpers, cinema shocks, cosy knits, hot dinners and 80's diet culture contemplation.
This morning, I received a letter from my four year old nephew, Lars who lives in London, sent via Royal Mail. I cannot recall the last time that I received any sort of hand written missive through the post. Generally, our post selection includes a motley selection of Joe Brown brochures (I honestly don’t think I have ever bought a single thing from there, it’s inexplicable), local flyers about Full Sutton Prison improvements, council tax reminders, terrifying brown envelopes (is there anyone who doesn’t feel their heart leap when they see that HMRC logo?) and, recently, a significant amount of sales materials aimed at people over 50 looking to move into retirement complexes, make wills, organise funeral insurance or go on Saga holidays. FFS. I really feel as if they need to put the age demographic a touch higher on these targeted marketing lists.
Anyway, it was lovely to receive a real life letter. I was reminded that when I was at primary school, we were allocated penpals from schools in other countries with whom to exchange letters and it was always SO exciting to receive their responses. There were other letters that were not quite so exciting, however. When I was young, we would go on camping holidays on sites near to La Rochelle with two other families. Every evening the kids would leave the adults drinking French wine under the tent canopies and go off to meet other camping kids to cause carnage. One year when I was 14, I met a 16 year old French boy called Thierry - we had a whirlwind week of romance, after which I made the fatal mistake of giving him my home address so that we could write to each other. I cast him from my mind, of course, the moment we left French shores in order to concentrate on more local love interests but unfortunately, Thierry found it less easy to forget and wrote to me within a month announcing he was coming to London the following week and could he come and stay with us. I was so traumatised that I wrote back to tell him that we were moving house immediately to an unknown address so no, he couldn’t. A lesson had been learned. I thank the Lord to this day that mobile phones had not yet landed.
Okay, so back to this months Items Of Note and September was spent trying to get back into the hang of life after the holidays and, mostly, suffering some appalling weather conditions. York has excelled itself over the last few weeks with downpours not incomparable to Noahs flood and a chill in the air that is, quite frankly, just TOO EARLY. However, weather aside, there has been much to lift my spirits and spark joy in my life, albeit quite soggy and cold. Here are Five Items Of Note that have done the job.
For The Love Of Burgundy, Sort Of.
I mentioned previously that the colour burgundy is being touted as the colour of the moment and I am not really sure how I feel about it. I do like burgundy; in fact I recently went to a wedding in full colour drench burgundy, from the dress to the shoes to the tights (I don’t like to do things by halves). This was back in March and trying to find a pair of burgundy court shoes was, I tell you, virtually impossible - now, you can’t move in the Zara aisles without stumbling over hundreds of them. It’s a good colour for almost all skin tones, agreed, but for me, it will always remind me of Newnham Junior School in Eastcote, where the maroon jumpers and grey skirts still survive today 45 (FML) years later. Even my secondary school in Hong Kong was a burgundy jumper zone - in fact, it’s long been considered a colour reflecting officialdom so that makes perfect sense.
As usual, what we see in on the fashion rails is quick to make it into our home interiors and there’s burgundy all over the shop, with tones that are much more subdued and warming than the pops of red that have been around most recently. Jewel bright shades have taken a back seat in recent years on our High Streets (H&M Home is a great example of this) with preference being given to earthy, more natural colours to create an interior feel that is cosy and welcoming. Burgundy has a definite air of sophistication and feels rather grown up, but is fairly easy to incorporate into your home - pale yellows and soft greens are particularly effective combined with this opulent shade. Burgundy and pink is my favourite of combinations - readers will recall that I featured the coolest of striped duvet sets from Mango Home a few weeks ago on High Street Heroes that is the perfect balance. It also looks great with natural textures such as wood and metals - remember, it’s not necessary to chuck yourself in at the deep end, a simple addition is a nod to the trend to see if it’s a colour that might work for you. So what’s out there that you can add to your repertoire? Here’s a selection of favourite finds that will do the job.
Jumpers, Nice Ones.
A few weeks ago I spoke about how I was attempting to curate a capsule wardrobe, something that in my many years of being an adult I have never managed to achieve. In fact, these two words alone just generally feel WELL out of my league and I am starting to feel that perhaps should never have started. So far, I seem to have a selection of clothes that should in theory work well together, but I always end up going back to old favourites. Anyway, I am persevering and one of the key looks I am planning on (this is why I am not a fashion blogger, btw) is skirts and jumpers. And also, trousers and jumpers. I know, ground breaking stuff. With, can I just add, a blazer over the top. This, for me, is progress. After looking for hours for the perfect oversized example, I found a flannel one in the Sale on La Redoute (I shop a lot on La Redoute who I always feel are very much underrated when it comes to both homeware and fashion. They also, actually, I discovered the other day when searching for lace skirts, sell outrageously sexy underwear - minus crotches - and an extensive selection of sex toys. Who knew?). This is it and it’s a good one. I sized up as I wanted it big and it’s lovely quality too, plus, half price! Yes, half price! It goes with all my jumpers and skirts AND the jumpers and trousers so I feel like I have driven at least part of the long highway of capsule wardrobe dreams.
But let’s get back to jumpers, which are always my main event. I have quite a few of these. Or I did, before Ella my daughter decided that - although she has scorned my clothing style for the last 20 years, claiming that she’d rather cut off her own head than wear anything that I would wear - she quite likes my clothes and has taken at least half of my jumper collection back to Manchester. I’ve been perusing this week and there’s a few which I am really quite liking, one of which I ‘may’ have ordered to go with my skirts and trousers.
Craving Hot, One Pot Dinners.
I’ve mentioned before - endlessly, in fact, sorry - that I am not a fan of cold weather. However, the advent of Autumn (also known here in Yorkshire as pissing down with rain and not stopping for weeks, season) brings with it a few benefits, although not as many as the warmer months. Fire lighting is top of my list. We installed a log burner in the sitting room about five years ago and it is 100% the best addition that we’ve ever made - even the very action of propping the kindling and striking the match is enjoyable and there is nothing better when the weather is dire than sitting on the sofa watching Netflix with it flickering in the background. Joe is not such a fan. He usually lasts about an hour before he starts complaining that he’s overheating and can’t breathe properly (so dramatic) and opens the window, an act of defiance that is GUARANTEED to cause an argument and means I have to pause the remote until the situation is remedied. Sigh.
Another main benefit of these autumnal moments is food. And autumnal food means hot, easy, pretty much one pot meals, the cherry on the top of the fairy cake of cooking and my favourite thing to make. I am not one for standing next to a stove for hours - particularly if we are hosting guests - and a one pot with a side of nice bread and maybe some green leaves is the perfect meal in my book. You’ll find a selection of my favourites in the Food section of my Substack - I’ll link this one here that lists seven, an old blog post but a good one - but there’s a couple that I’ve recently made that are definitely worth sharing. The first is from a book I bought recently called The Dinner Party - I made it when Joe’s mum and her friends came for dinner and it was a great success, yet took literally no time to prep.
Braised Chicken, Capers & Olives
You will need: 6 chicken thighs with skin on; 250ml chicken stock; 180ml white wine; 60ml mirin (you can substitute this if you don’t have with white wine vinegar); 30ml light soy sauce; 200g kalamata olives, drained with 50ml brine reserved); 50g capers; 8 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed; 1 tbsp dried oregano; 2 tbsp thyme leaves; half tsp of chilli flakes; 2 bay leaves; 150ml olive oil; 1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika; fresh picked oregano to serve.
Method: Heat oven to 200 degrees and arrange chicken in a roasting dish, skin up. Combine all ingredients except the olive oil, paprika and fresh oregano in a bowl, then mix well. Pour the mixture over the chicken so it’s evenly distributed. Pour the olive oil over the top and season well - dust the paprika over the skins and then put in the oven for 45-60 minutes, basting every now and then with the liquid, until the chicken is crispy skinned and golden. To serve, sprinkle with the fresh oregano. You can use Sharons salsa verde sauce alongside from my previous blog. I served this with smashed potatoes (from the Girls Dinner menu) and a roasted tomato green salad but it would also be delicious with mash and steamed green beans (top tip: my chef friend Sam told me once that there is no point making your own mash when you can buy the EXACT same thing from Waitrose (or whatever supermarket you are closest to) if you’re in a rush. The ingredients are all the same. Fact).
The second thing that I’ve made in the last few weeks is a bastardised version of a Nigella recipe from the classic Nigella Express that I have been making for years and that is a guaranteed warmer upper when the weather is shite. Nigella does it with puff pastry (which obvs you can do too) but I am not a great pastry fan, so we have it often with mashed potato. Waitrose bought, obvs. I am calling it a pie, but my friend James is adamant that it’s not actually a pie unless it has a pastry top. Ignoring him. Also apologies - I made this for my mother in law and forgot to take a photograph but trust me, it’s delish.
Chicken, Mushroom & Bacon Pie
You will need: 3 rashers of streaky bacon, cut into strips; 1 tsp garlic oil (or normal olive oil with a chopped garlic clove); 125g chestnut mushrooms, sliced; 250g chicken breasts cut into chunks; 25g flour; a tsp dried thyme; a tbsp of butter; 300ml chicken stock; tbsp of Marsala; mashed potato.
Method: Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Fry the bacon in the oil then add the mushrooms and stir until softened. Put the flour and thyme in a bowl and mix the chicken in it. Melt the butter in the pan with the bacon and mushrooms, then add the chicken pieces and all the flour that’s left. Stir all around until the chicken starts to brown. Pour in the hot stock and Marsala, stirring to form a sauce and let it bubble until the chicken is cooked, 5-10 minutes. Pour all into a serving dish, then top with mashed potato and stick in the oven for about 20 minutes. Job done. Serve with peas. Peas and mash are the BEST combo.
Cinema Visits When It’s Cold Outside.
This month I have made a concerted effort to go to the cinema. I love the cinema, particularly, as previously mentioned, our local Everyman. Last year we looked at a house to buy from which you could see the Everyman when standing in the front garden and I almost wanted to buy it immediately JUST for that reason (you could also see KFC, the local tattoo parlour and Sainsburys Local so it wasn’t all good views but the Everyman would have swung it for me, for sure; in addition, Dr Saleena who does my aesthetic treatments has her clinic directly opposite so it was SUPER tempting, ha). Anyway, I always here for elevated experiences and a cosy sofa with cushions, a little bowl of chorizo sausage, some guacamole and a glass of wine has me utterly SOLD.
My friend Sam is the perfect person to accompany me to the cinema. She’s a secondary school English teacher and knows A LOT so she always has something interesting to say about what we’ve seen. I love watching films - I love watching TV in general, if I’m being honest - but you really cannot beat seeing a film on a massive screen, especially in the colder months when it’s warm and cosy inside. We started our month of cinema with Lee (the story of Vogue war photography correspondent, Lee Miller) which I wrote up last week on my midweek post which was super enjoyable. You know when a film is good when you want to immediately go and find out more about the subject matter; Lee Millers son, Antony Penrose, has recently published a biography of her life after finding her work in the attic after her death, I’ll link it here.
We decided that our quest was to see only films by women directors so next on our list was The Substance starring Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a TV fitness instructor who is cast out due to her age in favour of a younger model and decides to take drastic action. Okay, so first of all I had not read about the film prior to going (I actually thought it was called No Substance, I was that badly prepared) and within five minutes of the film starting, both Sam and I were hiding our eyes. It takes A LOT for me to hide my eyes in a film - I am a horror obsessive - but the visceral nature of this blew our minds. And continued to blow our minds for the next two hours twenty minutes (yes, prepare yourselves, it’s long). Directed by French director Coralie Fargeat - who won Best Screenplay for the film at Cannes this year - it was utterly unexpected, crazily grotesque and bloody BRILLIANT. Although the last 20 minutes were a little off the wall, if I’m being honest. Let me know in the comments if you’ve seen it and what you think. Sam and I’s next date is The Outrun next week starring Saoirse Ronan - will report back on that.
Contemplating My Diet Culture Led Eighties Upbringing.
I threw myself into September intending to get back on track when it came to my diet and, more specifically, my cheese intake. I really love cheese. All cheese actually, there isn’t a single cheese variety that I wouldn’t slap on a cracker and stuff in my mouth. Unfortunately, it is a solid fact that as I have hit menopausal age, the cheese goes into my mouth and then likes to take a rest. On my stomach, mostly. It is also undeniable that once you are past 45ish, things slow down and that zooming metabolism from earlier years disappears in a puff of smoke, taking with it your tautness of skin and firmness of body unless action is taken. I was spurred on by my chest - bear with - as I have one reconstructed boob after having breast cancer. This boob does not move, grow or flop as it’s solid implant and was originally equal to its partner. However, the other side does all the above things so as a result, the bigger I get, the more wonky my body becomes. I know, this is quite niche but it does cause problems especially if I’m wearing a tight top (yes, I could avoid tight tops but I like them).
So I rummaged through my bookshelf and dug out The Dukan Diet. Dr Pierre Dukan is an 82 year old French nutritionalist who wrote his book in 2010 before being struck off by the French Medical Council for promoting his trade commercially. He does appear, in fairness, to be slightly off the wall and his book is not one for the faint hearted, full of quotes like ‘5 million French people can’t be wrong’ and ‘man is a carnivorous hunter’ (not really one for the vegetarians either, tbh). Basically, it’s a paleo eating plan. High protein, low fat, low carbs, low sugar, vegetables, a 30 minute walk daily and lots of water. And no restrictions on coffee. Dr Dukan is European, after all.
Weirdly, I find it quite difficult to say the words ‘I’m on a diet’ for fear, I admit, of reprisal. We now live in a world where it’s totally fine and celebrated to say that you are happy with your body, yet at risk of being a social pariah if you say that you are not and want to be slimmer. I’ve spoken to lots of age alike friends recently about how our diet culture led 1980’s upbringings have effected how we approach the subject of body image and weight loss today, plus contemplated hard the contrast with the way that we live now. Back in the 1980’s, there were no gyms as such (unless you were either a body builder or went to Pineapple Dance Studio) and our diets were freezer food and ready meal heavy. The word ‘juicing’ was only used in relation to lemon squeezing. Our health and fitness inspiration came from Mad Lizzie on TVAM who would bounce around clad in head to toe satin lycra. No fresh air, outdoorsy activity went on in the Gardening Club in Covent Garden, that’s for sure. But my parents were always on diets, EVERYONE was always on diets. Thinner was better. Weight Watchers, SlimFast, Lean Cuisine, The Scarsale Diet, The Grapefruit Diet (where you’d have grapefruit alongside every meal - WTF). Being slim and watching what we ate was drummed into us - the years passed, but still these learnings remained ingrained, in some cases to the detriment of our own mental health when it came to body image.
But conversely, our day to day lives were SO much more naturally active in the eighties. No one was dropped at school by car; everyone walked or cycled. I’d walk 40 minutes daily to Eastcote tube station (in four inch heels, ffs) to go to work every day. There was no Netflix to keep us on the sofa (I don’t even think Channel 4 existed until 1982), no Playstations to keep the kids in the bedroom (everyone played outside), no phones to keep us static. We might have been going to the pub from the age of 15 (IMAGINE) but we walked all the way home from it. If you wanted to buy sellotape, you went to Woolworths. A birthday card? Forget Me Not on Eastcote High Street. We never went out for big dinners unless it was a VERY special occasion and the only local fast food outlet was Wimpy. If you wanted something, the majority of the time you walked to get it and you didn’t need a watch to check your steps.
Fast forward 35 years and we live a life where there is simply NOTHING that is not at our fingertips. Any food that you want, from burgers to sushi, straight to your door by a man on a bike, quick processed meals in abundance, supermarket shopping deliveries so that we don’t even have to leave the house, Ubers via a quick swipe. Cards can be sent via Moonpig for any occasion without having to get off the sofa, you don’t even have to sign them. We can order anything we like on Amazon to arrive next day, from cat food to phone cases to picture hooks, and we don’t need to go to the shops. Hell, now we can even buy weight loss injections that can do the work for us. We can do it ALL without actually moving about, without putting one foot in front of the other. Ah, the dichotomy. But also, fucking hell. On the plus side, we are living slightly longer - healthcare is more advanced (although much harder to come by if you’re trying to get a doctors appointment) and technology has given us easier access to make healthier lifestyle choices.
Anyway I digress. This week I took action to equal out the wonky boob and have (sadly) ditched the cheddar but I’m already feeling brighter, less bloated (likely because I’m not eating sugar or processed stuff) and sleeping better. For me, the way that I feel about my body has a direct correlation to how comfortable I feel in my own skin and in turn, how happy I feel in life. And I’m not ashamed to admit that. Pass the coffee, please.
And a quick note to remind you that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Check, check and check again - you can never check too much! You can read my post about my own experience here.
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I think my mum had shares in Aydes diet candy and Slimcea bread back in the 70s. She's now 88 and still talks about 'watching her weight' and my poor 95 year old dad has to watch his too! I take cake when I visit and they make it last weeks. It lasts two days tops chez nous!
It's our first Autumn in our new home by the sea. Alas, we no longer have a fire to make the living room cosy, and we need cosy when those coastal storms hit and those single glazed sash windows rattle like mad. But I'll throw on vests and jumpers, eat soup and snuggle under a heated throw (best present ever!) and binge watch Emily in Paris or Colin from Accounts!
I maybe in a minority of one but real fires are a hard no for me. I am a Yorkshire woman born & bred. Setting the fire was my task from being young. We went to stay in a cottage with wood burner one year in early December. My DH had no idea how to make a fire so I pulled my firemaking skills out from 50 years before. I have NEVER been so cold! They only work with central heating.
I need to look up Dr Saleena. Whilst I’m an hour away a recommendation is worth its weight in gold!