JUN 10th I lost a good friend this week. The grief is so huge it feels as though my heart is dragging down into the ground. I miss her and her lightness, her comic genius, her beautiful smile. And her ‘unbaking’. I really miss her ‘unbaking’. We were the founding and only members of the ‘Hot Stay At Home Mumma’s Who Also Kick Ass in Business’ club, HSAHMWAKAIB if you will. I must credit my friend for the catchy acronym. Born out of ‘what if’ conversations our little club begat our businesses too. It was from one of our convos that I first floated the business idea that would eventually become Tonic & Cloth. AND it was during one of...
DEC 12th Blessings upon blessings we are travelling back to the UK over the next few weeks to see family and friends for the first time in many many years. But before we reach our snowy white Christmas we're having a sneaky few days in Thailand. An unbelievable and unexpected treat which we are soaking up with reckless abandon. I don't know what it's like at your house but I'm telling you, the beautiful simplicity of an uninterrupted conversation with my husband is a rare treat, and we've had at least three since we arrived. Three glorious uninterrupted conversations. Yes. Three. And I dare say it may happen a few more times before we leave. That's the...
SEP 24th This is my ode to Kara - the lady who makes words look pretty. She is an artist with them. Crafting them out of the paper, as a statue from stone. It really floats my boat this business of graphic design. Mostly because I. CANNOT. DO. IT. But also because there is a rags to riches, wheat from the chaff, beauty for ashes element to it - I send her my lump of word-clay and she articulates it, smooths it, adds form and beauty to the function. I fumble my instructions 'make it look pretty' and she masterfully interprets detail from my fumbling into colours, font, shape, alignments. It's genius, nothing less. Sometimes I send her my 'mock...
AUG 28th Artist's impression of our kiwi Marie Kondo - thanks Emily Rostran You may disagree with me, but I think we do better when we have less to work with. Sounds a little depressing and utilitarian, but let me try and explain myself. For me, my most major of constraints has been chronic illness. It can really put a dampener on doing things with finesse. When you're thinking about what to wear in the morning - you're thinking track pant level - not corporate wear. The thought of slapping more than a little moisturizer on your mug is vertigo inducing, foundation and lippie seem like heights insurmountable. Chronic illness can seem a reason not to do things at...
AUG 16th My five year old loves to dance. She does it absolutely imperfectly but with enough joy and faith in herself it fills the kitchen to overflowing. When she makes a mistake she makes it part of the dance, acts like it was meant to be there, fully owns it. Her believing that the dance was meant to be that way, makes her adoring audience believe it too. There's a life lesson in there somewhere. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, which is tough for someone so far from perfection. Little things annoy me. The creams and potions of my medicine cabinet are all without lids. I'm not sure how this happens or where they go. But they're not...
