Five Items Of Note

A list of things for discussion this January. New Year, New Me (LOL) and why Cloud Dancer is one for the win. Plus the joys of single life, great skincare and ditching the old for the new.

This post is sponsored by Renew + Me Nightly Active Treatment that addresses age related skin conditions such as pigmentation and spots while restoring radiance and firmness. If you like what you read and want to read more, then I would love it if you would consider becoming a free or a paid subscriber!

We arrived back from Miami to a house so cold that you could see your breath due to the fact that the fuse on the boiler had blown. It was so cold that I couldn’t even place my socked feet on the bathroom tiles - after attempting to fix it myself by removing fuses from random table lamps, I admitted defeat and called my friend Karen who came over with her husband Adam and immediately discovered I had whacked the wrong amperage in. Sigh. 3amp, 13amp, what’s the difference? Significant, apparently. You live and you learn. I now have a large amount of non fused table lamps and extension cords cluttering my bedroom which are likely to remain non fused for the foreseeable future. I am not good with boilers. There’s a Hive thing attached to ours in order to set the timer but I have never put batteries in it and as a result, have to manually put the heating on each day. It’s one of those jobs that I think I REALLY must sort it out but it always goes to the back of the queue. One day, I’ll be in control. Perhaps.

Anyway, I took two weeks off over the Christmas period but now I’m back in the game. After trawling Berkshire to visit family and friends, we set off to Miami the day after Boxing Day - getting off the plane into blue skies and a warm breeze was total heaven and it was VERY hard to get back on it to return. On the way out, I was separated from the kids seating wise (due to reasons I won’t bore you with) and was seated next to an 80 year old Newcastle couple on their way to pick up a cruise ship. They were long term cruise fans. She told me they had been on so many Princess Cruises that now, they had racked up enough points to get their laundry done for free on board. Goals. Rather impressively, they managed to down ten bottles of plane wine between them whilst I was watching The White Lotus before they fell asleep for five hours. I actually don’t mind plane wine, it is significantly better than train wine which could be the very best Chablis yet would still taste like shit. My kids totally forgot about me - it is very telling that only ONE child came down from the top deck to check I was still alive during a nine hour flight. FFS.

But back to the point and I haven’t done a Five Items Of Note since October so have plenty to discuss with you. Here are five items of note that I have been contemplating this month and that I think you need to know about.

1. New Year! New Me! LOL.

We spent New Year in Miami (I know, that sounds quite flash) but despite the fact I was with kids in their twenties and teens, we didn’t actually manage to stay up for New Year which is fairly shameful, especially as there were fireworks on Miami Beach and our Hotel was having a roof top party. So boring, I hear you cry. But quite frankly, we had been out since Happy Hour and there is only so much you can eat and drink and as Dawsons, we all like our beds. Also, it is REALLY expensive to drink alcohol in Miami when there are five of you. For example, a bottle of rose Chicken Wine (you know the one) was $65 in the bar. I mean, seriously. You can get it in Asda for £8. The roof top party also sounded really loud. I know that makes me sound like a Granny, but DJ music is just SO hardcore and repetitive and you can’t even talk to each other. Where is all the Hall & Oates? Tears For Fears? Duran Duran? Now THAT’S what I call music (puts on slippers and pours a Baileys). What is the point of a song that you can’t sing along to? Answer me that one. This morning Leo was eating his breakfast and looked at me askance as I sang word for word along to Young Guns on Radio 2. Never let it be said that I’ve not still got it.

This cocktail cost $8000. Well, almost.

Musical moans aside, it was a perfect New Year. I am not a great fan of New Years Eve if I’m being totally honest. I LOVE the idea of a new year beginning, but staying up late is not for me and I also think it gives people an excuse to be maudlin and reflect which isn’t generally a good idea when you’re five glasses of wine in and have only eaten canapes. But, a new year is good. You can chuck out the rubbish from last year and start afresh, but I am always hesitant to make proper resolutions as I know I am unlikely to stick to them. You never know what life is going to throw at you which is why I am not a fan of Dry January. My friend Kat told me she was doing Damp January which is a FAR better idea - only having a drink at weekends. So much more sensible. There isn’t much that can beat a Friday glass of wine. I can see no benefit to ditching it and feeling stressed that you can’t have one.

There are, however, a few resolutions that I have been considering and they are wholly self care based. Having as many facials and treatments as my budget will allow, to start with. If I look good, I feel better. This is a fact. I feel better for MYSELF, not for other people, btw. If you follow me on Instagram you will know that I have no qualms whatsoever to appearing on my Stories to 220k people make up free and looking like shit. That’s life. But having a good facial? A massage? This, my friends, is a joy bringer and should not be underestimated. Even just getting your nails done properly can be a mood booster. Clean hair is another. LONG BATHS. Lit candles all day (buy them from Aldi). Also, not doing things I don’t want to do. Okay, I’ve been doing this for a while but aim to continue this into the foreseeable future. Being grateful for my friends and family and making sure they know it. Last year was fairly rocky and it really did make me realise how important my friends are PLUS it weeded out the ones that weren’t quite so essential. Less friends, but the ones that are there are worthy of care.

So yes, I am bounding (well, sort of) into a new year with no intentions whatsoever except to do good things for myself and make no excuses for it. I will continue to procrastinate, lie on the sofa and watch crap TV, get into bed early and watch crap TV, order Uber Eats deliveries from Waitrose when I can’t be bothered to get into the car, cancel events if I can’t be arsed, not drink enough water, spend too much time chatting in WhatsApp groups, buy nice wine, move my furniture around regularly, ignore Instagram trends, poorly economise, smoke when I’m stressed, turn the music up when I’m not and buy lobster prawn cocktails to put on jacket potatoes for a quick dinner even though they cost £6.50. Happy New Year!

2. White Walls For The Win.

Oh, the excitement when Pantone Colour Of The Year was announced as Cloud Dancer, described by Pantone as ’a lofty white that serves as a symbol of calming influence in a society rediscovering the value of quiet reflection. A billowy white imbued with serenity, Cloud Dancer encourages true relaxation and focus, allowing the mind to wander and creativity to breathe, making room for innovation’. My social feeds were full of outraged colour lovers claiming that ‘white isn’t a colour!’ and ‘what a cop out!’. But how wrong they are, people. White walls are the future, I tell you.

It’s easy to think that a white wall means that your decor will resemble those pure neutral homes that we are bombarded with on Instagram. White walls, cream sofas, lots of wood, homes that can dull your mind (I’m not against these homes btw, they just don’t bring me joy but then they’re not my home so it doesn’t matter). But boring is not what the choice of Cloud Dancer demonstrates. It’s basic science. Keeping your base neutral enables you to add whatever you like to your decor without fear of clash. By doing this, it expands your creative mind and encourages you to consider other options for your decor than simply what you see on your social feeds or magazines. It encourages you to bring in colours via accessories and textiles that you might not previously have considered,

With a neutral base, you can drag in ALL the colours and textures and it still works.

We are led by colour trends when it comes to decorating our homes but a neutral base? Well, the world is your oyster. You can add what you like. Colour accents via woodwork or furniture, art that shouts, textiles in any shade that appeals to you and the ability, importantly, to update your rooms, rearrange and restyle without spending loads of cash as you don’t need to ensure that the colour of your walls works with what you own. The words from Pantone are exactly right - with more options, you can really expand your creativity and create an individual home that works for you and represents what you love. You’re unrestricted with the palette.

Light rooms boost the mood. This was really rammed home to me on holiday this year when Ella and I were given a smallish Hotel room with dark burgundy walls and a small window. The lighting was poor, meaning that we could barely read our books without an iPhone torch or even see into our suitcases; we were constantly losing things or putting on each others pants (our pants are VERY different, believe me) and subsequently, we avoided the room unless it was absolutely necessary. Outside? Clear blue skies, the lightest and brightest of days, nature at it’s finest. Creating dark spaces inside? Make this make sense to me, please. Yes, the room was chic. Leopard print curtains, rattan wardrobe, all the stuff. But it was dark as hell and deeply claustrophobic, even though it had multiple lighting sources. Yes, we like to be cocooned but not to an extent that we can’t find our knickers.

Keeping indoor spaces light in colour reflects the gloriousness of the outdoors, makes a room feel bigger, airier, calmer and will entirely lift your mood. The way that we decorate our homes is changing; with the welcome inclusion of more second hand and vintage wares we are less influenced by trends than we once were and more likely to create non indentikit homes that reflect what we love, curations of memories and full of things that make us happy. In my opinion, Cloud Dancer is exactly right for the time in which we live now; we are adding to our spaces with more thought, less speed, more of an urge to be individual and more consideration for the planet and for our pockets. A neutral blank canvas on which to work? No holds barred. Perfect.

3. Self Care And Good Skin.

Okay, so back to my New Years resolutions and as mentioned, one of these is more self care. Honestly, I think this should be a resolution for EVERYONE. Firstly, it makes you feel good. This is an essential and can’t be underestimated. Investing in better products and treatments is one of my not so secret joys in life and I never feel like it’s something that I should be cutting back on - it’s a mood booster and seeing my skin improve is genuinely satisfying. The older I get, the more targeted I am with what I use on my face and body - it’s a known fact that with age comes reduced collagen so it’s super important to keep your skin hydrated and as supple as possible. But as I age, I also find that I am more prone to redness which is a new thing for me - my skin has been firmly in the ‘combination’ category for years but now, I find that I am getting way more dry spots and pigmentation which is par for the course but finding something that really works on these areas can be difficult.

You’ll know that I’ve been using Renew + Me Serum In A Cream for many months now with great results (you can read about it here), but recently I have switched to Nightly Active Treatment which is a new product offering a deeper level of personalisation in the base formula itself. Basically, it is tailored based on whether or not you are prone to oily or dry skin. In contrast, the Serum In A Cream uses the same rich base across all ingredients, with the active area being the personalised element which is created when you complete the online consultation form.

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And even better, Renew + Me have given me a discount code LDAWSON so that you can try the Nightly Active Treatment yourself for just £6.99 for your first month. After this date, it’ll revert to £29.99 which is the normal price (slightly lower than the Serum In A Cream which is £34.99 per month). Just click the link to go online and complete your free personal consultation with the Dermatology Team. If you are already using the Serum In A Cream, you’ll need to cancel your subscription and then resubscribe to the Nightly Active Treatment and complete a new consultation form to be assessed by the Renew + Me Dermatology Team - this is because it’s entirely tailored to you and the formulation is different than the first product (you can’t use them both together). When you’ve tried it, let me know what you think! And finally, as with all of their personalised products, they use proven, gold standard ingredients and if you haven’t seen results by week 12, then they offer a money back guarantee - that’s how confident the Dermatology Team are that it will do the job.

4. Single, Not Ready To Mingle.

I have thought a lot about being a single person since my marriage broke up in September. I have been married for 24 years but prior to that, I was also married for a short time in my twenties so I was not an amateur in the ways of the wedded. There is a lot to be said for having a partner. Shared responsibilities (well, some, dependent on how good at it the other person is), always having someone to bat ideas off, the comfort of knowing that you are one of a two. Eating together, sharing experiences, knowing that someone has always got your back. That being said, the expression ‘other half’ is one that has always irritated me, implying that without that person you are not a whole (not as irritating as the expression ‘hubby’ or ‘better half’ though; they make me want to projectile vomit).

When you have been with a person for a quarter of a century, it’s easy to forget who you are without them. You go with the flow, you adapt to each other; often you take the easy way rather than the hard way and more than often, you settle. That’s the expression, isn’t it? Settle down. Moving from a restless state into a calm one. The calm state becomes the norm, the urge to move out of that and do different things becomes less regular and routine and structure become part of your day to day. When this moves, if your partnership destructs, when the carpet is whisked from under your feet and you are forced back into the restless state, it feels kind of weird.

In all honesty, I thought that it would feel worse than it does. But what I’ve found is that it actually feels quite liberating. Quite freeing. When you’re used to communicating and being with someone every day for years, taking this contact away feels as if it should be incalculably difficult. But I underestimated how confident I was in my own self. This sounds a bit wanky but it’s true. I am, as the quotes say, ‘stronger than I think I am’ (believe me, I have tried really hard not to be the person who heads to Pinterest for positivity/strong woman/fuck you quotes to save in my Photo folder but I can’t help myself, ffs). The shared structure and routine that I have had for the last 24 years may be gone, but the prospect of NO shared structure and routine is also incredibly exciting. And almost four months on, I am still okay with it. In fact, I really quite like it.

But there is also reality. I’m 54. I have scars from cancer surgery. I will be twice divorced. The idea of putting myself out ‘into the field’ to meet others makes me feel really quite apprehensive. Although part of it is apprehension; part of it is ‘can I actually be bothered to do this again?’. I’m not alone in my situation, I know that. Out of my group of five close friends, three of us are now divorced, one is widowed. Marriages breaking down in your 50’s almost seems to be a pandemic (I have much to say about this in next weeks post, ha). I have an absolute dread of online dating. My kids convinced me to join Raya but I set it live for just half a day before I took it back off again (honestly, the stress of it and also, they kept wanting to me to heart the posts of retired French footballers, plus Leo has asked me to specifically only go out with golfers). I have a fear of more regular dating sites, safe in the knowledge that wherever I post I will, without doubt, be discovered and perused by my kids twenty something friends as they all use them. URGH. God help me.

‘Soon to be twice divorced woman with one real boob seeks man who will pour her wine, cook her dinner and take her to art galleries with no complaints. Or Daniel Craig. Either or.’

Anyway, so far, so good. Life is good. I am good. My kids are good. Even the animals are good. This weekend, I have no real plans bar painting shelving and I cannot wait to light the candles, binge Harlan Coben and pour a cold glass of wine in front of the fire. There is much light and there isn’t even a tunnel, really. I’m looking forward to this next stage of my life with much anticipation because as proven this last year, nothing can be predicted and anything can happen. That’s exciting. Now all I have to do is to find a professional golfer to date and Leo will be happy. LOL.

5. New Year, New Non Chipped Plates.

One of the changes that I am most looking forward to in my house this month is the kitchen shelves going up. Ollie the amazing joiner is going to build floor to ceiling around the door to the living room and I cannot WAIT. It is no secret that I am a big fan of an open shelf. I have been the subject of many distressed Instagram follower messages concerned about the dust situation of such an arrangement, but I have no care for that. Dust, smust. Whatevs. I like seeing things on show - what is the point of curating pretty stuff if you can’t view it? Lovely crockery is not made to be stuck in a drawer and only brought out for special occasions.

However, it has come to my attention since I have been washing up in the bidet that many of my dinner plates are badly chipped. I invested about five years ago in Bordallo Pinheiro cabbages (top tip for doing this - I bought a couple of month so it didn’t seem such a big outlay) and I love them a lot, but they are really past their prime. My kids also have a penchant for putting massive amounts of ketchup on their plates, taking them to their rooms and leaving them there for days on end so that the ketchup sinks and dries into the ‘cabbage veins’ and is impossible to get out without the aid of a dishwasher. I am not a ketchup fan and honestly, the dried variety makes me heave. And yes, I should make them wash them but when you’re washing up in a bidet sometimes these battles are just not worth the angst. No one needs that sort of stress when you’re washing up in sanitaryware designed to wash backsides.

Anyway, my intention with the new shelves is to have all the daily crockery and tableware on display so I have been searching around for a set of eight reasonably priced dinner plates, side plates and bowls so that I can replace the cabbages with something that doesn’t look like it’s been thrown in a Greek restaurant. Here’s what I’ve been looking at but which did I buy? Spoiler: the first one as it’ll stand out against the chocolate brown perfectly.

1.Enamel stoneware, La Redoute £31.99 for four; 2. Floral earthenware, Zara £9.99; 3. Tan stoneware, H&M £14.99 for two; 4. Speckled, Mango Home £7.99; 5. Leckford stoneware, John Lewis £7; 6. Jackson Splatter, Habitat £50 for 12 piece set.

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