Joie De Vivre?

Today has been a terrible rush as I try and get my house ready for bedroom decorating next week. It is quite astonishing how much you can accrue in a bedroom, I find. Also, DUST. I have been replanning how my bedroom will be laid out and today (after going to meet friends for a celebration lunch (a rookie error) so moved my bed across the room to see what I could fit in in the other side.

Good morning and I was awoken today by the banging of a brush on my bedroom window which turned out to be unexpected arrival of the window cleaners who were then forced to witness me half asleep in my nightie opening the courtyard gate. Those poor men. It was only 7.15 am but usually I would be doing Wordle with a cup of tea by then, was it not for the fact that I was in London last night for an event and was therefore late home.

[Cover photo, Ben Lenovitz]. Good morning and I am SO BEHIND with this post due to two days of intermittent power cuts on my street. I don’t know how it happened, but it started with the Big Storm that happened at the weekend which blew all the sockets in my kitchen and I had to call British Gas Homecare to come to the rescue. And then last night, I went to meet my friend for an early evening drink and catch up chat and when I returned, all the power had gone completely.

[Cover photo credit, Sandberg Wallpaper]. Good morning and if all has gone to plan, then I should be having a rather relaxed weekend. Or so I hope, ha. Leo has gone to Leeds Festival for the first time (he didn’t want to go last year as he didn’t like the line up, ffs) and the weather is horrific with thunderstorms forecast and constant heavy rain. He has sent me two photographs so far, one of him with beer in hand and one where he looks like a mentalist.

It’s almost a year since I started the renovations on my house in York. I got the keys back in June 2025 and immediately started work, even though we didn’t move in until the end of July as we were renting a house close by. At the time, it was a ‘we’, but by September when my ex husband decided to disappear into the distance, it was an ‘I’ so in my head (and in actual fact), this house renovation has been completed entirely by me. I loved this house on sight.

[Cover photo, Beatriz Art via Maison Flaneur]. Last year, I posted my ideas for my bedroom but since then, I have had other ideas. This is mostly because I’ve now lived in this space for a year and things that I thought I would want I now know I don't need, and things that I thought I didn’t need, I discovered that I did need. Yes, it’s a journey.

Good morning lovely subscribers and today, I am feeling slightly jaded. And VERY tired. I am rubbish at two nights on the trot and simply cannot cope but this week, I went to York Races on Thursday, followed by a trip to a Hull beach with Leo in the pouring rain and wind to measure groynes before coming home to prepare a three course dinner for ten people in my kitchen. Honestly, just writing this has tired me out.

Last week, I was on holiday in Crete with my family and my daughter Ella brought out a list of Bingo Card ‘things we will do this year’ subjects that we had listed out when we were away at Christmas, to see how many we had completed. I have to be honest and say that I was pretty damn pleased with how mine was going so far, considering it was currently only August.

This week I’ve been having a slight panic about ‘getting things done’. I am usually really very organised but it takes just one thing to push me over the edge into out of control mode and this week, it has been crossing Wednesday off the list due to an unexpected campaign committal. This was not anticipated and did not fit into my week plan of three days work, one day York Races and one day taking Leo to Hull to measure tides for his Geography project.

Bonjour, mes amis. Whizzing through this today as I am about to put on my sequin jacket and head to Castle Howard, as mentioned yesterday, for the Ministry Of Sound Classical. I am 100% sure that everyone there will be the exact same demographic as us, wearing something sequinned and bright and complaining about the price of the food and drink trucks. We will also all have foldable chairs because no one over 35 wants to stand up for eight hours.