Another round-up of some recent delights
Half of which I'd have forgotten if it wasn't for my phone
Here’s something I really recommend as an instant mood lifter: Look through your phone photos. Ferris Bueller was a hero, a veritable icon to we Gen X-ers for a reason and that reason is, he was right about life moving pretty fast. It’s astonishing to me the amount of things I can forget have happened (elderly) as one week surges into the next. If I’m ever feeling a moment of great overwhelm, or simply indulging in a self-pitying ‘everything is shit’ little moment, I make myself look at my phone photos.
From snatched grins with friends, to the memes they with flood me with on the daily, there is always something that shifts me to an instantly lighter frame of mind and makes me realise that quite a few things going on in my life are, in fact, so very far from shit. If you don’t already do this, try it. And if you don’t have enough things to look back on on your phone, try to capture more moments every week. You’ll be surprised at how so many of the little things pile up and make you smile about your own universe and its people.
Some recent examples from me - some of which I had already forgotten but now give me great joy when I scroll back.
These photos that my sister has kept for 30 years
I’m 12 years older than my sister, Brooke. And when I was 15, and it was decided my mother had to return to full-time work, I was suddenly given a lot of childcare duties. I love my sister, but I can’t think of a better preventative contraception than asking a teenager to spend all day, every day, with a hyper-active toddler. It’s possibly not a coincidence that I delayed motherhood until the very last, dwindling supply of my eggs. But I digress. The point is, the age gap meant we didn’t grow up together. I left home when she was eight and moved to the other side of the world when she was 10. So our time together has always been snatched here and there, when one of us makes the trip. In 1995, she was still a kid living at home when I was thrilled to discover I could piss her off massively just with my dancing style. In a precursor to digital trolling, I went analogue and sent her a load of polaroids of me in various, unbearable to look at, dance poses. She hated them, yet could not look away. And only a couple of weeks ago, she found them. She’s coming to visit me this week. I’m excited about discovering how I can next annoy her. Side note: I see I’ve always had a penchant for a statement trouser.
This interview moment with My Stacey Heale
I’ve written about My Stacey Heale (to give her her full name) a few times before. She has become one of the most important women in my life. A truly brilliant writer, she has poured her soul into the most fearless and honest book. Now Is Not The Time For Flowers is all about dealing with the loss of her husband, Greg Gilbert. He died (Stacey cannot stand euphemisms like ‘passed away’) of cancer in 2021 and this memoir is about living in that grief swamp and learning - the brutal way - about how to handle hers and her young daughters’ loss. It’s a bittersweet fact that she and I probably wouldn’t have met if Greg had not died (there’s even a chapter on what brought us together. Spoiler alert: Kpop). It’s one of the things we discuss in the interview I’ve done her for the audio version of the book. I’ve said before that I think it’s the first book I’ve ever read on the subject that has the authentic voice of a person actually living in this century. So many people will be helped by Stacey’s insistence on examining every crevice of her own emotions. Please do seek it out.
A photo of my friend that is deeper than it looks
This is not unusual for most of you, I know. But I grew up in Sydney and moved to London when I was 22. My friends, for a huge period of my younger life, were by and large met at work. Some of these became great, lifelong friends yes. But I was in my 30s when I realised I didn’t have the sort of relationships with my girlfriends that I’d had in my teens and 20s. That is to say, meeting up somewhere - probably a shopping mall or a cafe - and just.. Mooching. For hours. The friends of my first decade in London were people I spent so much time at work with, it felt a bit weird to spend a lot of time together on weekends. When I realised I didn’t have my coffee shop girlfriends anymore, I was a bit sad about that but chugged along. When the parenting years came along, I spent any rare spare time I had catching up on sleep. I realised when I met my friend, the writer Sarah Standing, for a coffee and then we mooched around the high street shops, that I now had Girlfriends I Go Shopping With once again. London is my home, where I’ve built an entire life and relationships that mean everything to me. I’m proud of this full circle realisation and that is what this photo of Sarah - looking joyous in her rainbow jumper - says to me when I look at it.
I’ve started a fashion series
I’ve known Amanda Wakeley in a professional sense for a few years. Her name is synonymous with the self-assured, grown-up glamour which I will possibly never achieve with my wardrobe. We are style opposites in many ways, but we love clothes, we love chatting and we make each other laugh. So when she asked me to team up with her for a series that examines the week in fashion, I was thrilled. Friday Night Fashion is now coming at you every Friday night (funnily enough). In this week’s we’ll be arguing over our Oscars outfits hits and misses, but you can also go back for our recaps of all the recent fashion shows and soon we’re off to the races to review Cheltenham fashion. We may also be doing a live audience event soon, and if we pull that off I’ll be letting you know. Sipping wine in Amanda’s incredible London home is now a highlight of my week, and not just because I’m in love with her dog Luna, who loves me back. Though I presume she has now ghosted me since the release of the photos at the top of this post.
I smashed my face up real good
Obviously this did not bring me joy but I don’t mind a pratfall if you can also (eventually) get a laugh out of it. In fairness, it happened whilst I was the guest of my friends in their beautiful French Alps home so no tears need be shed on my account. I was shown to my table at the cute village creperie and I noticed that one of my chair legs was sort of slipping, ever so slightly, off a patio ledge. ‘You must watch that as you sit down and make sure the chair is steadied,’ I said to myself, wisely, as I took my seat and…. Immediately fell backwards off said patio, managing to smack my head really hard on a big wooden sign, as I then rolled down a little hill, turning over to hit my forehead on the road. It wasn’t as bad as the infamous time I tripped over the leg of my own trousers outside of Vogue House (and ended up in an ambulance) but I did got and have a shellshocked lie down for a good few hours. I consoled myself with cheese.
A new fashion discovery
Well, she’s new to me, anyway. Naturally, cool girls like Alexa Chung have known about her for some time now. My daughter requested some of designer Lauren Perrin’s pieces as a Christmas present. She got what she asked for, but then I fell down the Lauren Perrin rabbit hole and am now the owner of a new skirt and scarf from this emerging talent. Her tights are particularly good - great prints and excellent, pretty ladder-proof quality.
I met several brilliant women
Inevitably, there’s a lot of performative noise around International Women’s Day these days. That’s what happens when brands - and even individuals - fear being shamed by digital mobs for their silence on any given issue. And so we must endure things like corporations who do nothing to correct salary inequity giving ‘a big shout out to all the strong women’ in their company. It makes me a bit cynical and wary of IWD activities if I’m honest. But I was intrigued to be asked to join a panel discussion about ageism at The Ned in London. Hosted by POW TV Studios, I was flanked by some seriously smart, high achieving women, many of whom are embracing a second act in their 50s. it really was a truly meaningful and useful examination of our personal experiences of ageism and a sharing of thoughts and ideas of where we go from here. Something I really loved was that the audience was mixed. I’m so tired of groups of largely women coming together to lament the position of women. We need men to join this conversation and not keep carrying on as if it’s not their problem or their business. So when the bulk of the audience questions came from men (‘How do I encourage my mum to see herself differently?’ ‘I can’t even get women to apply for the jobs I’m advertising, how do I change that?’) it felt to me like, maybe, in some small ways, the conversation is slowly moving in the right direction. But then, this week on Celebrity Big Brother, Sharon Osbourne chose to nominate fellow housemate Fern Britton for eviction because ‘I think we oldies just really stick out here.’ When one of the most visible, most successful senior women in the world can be so reductive on the subject, I despair. The work continues.
Caroline Polachek, enough said
My daughter is an all or nothing kind of girl. Her obsessions hit hard and she has been a mega fan of the singer Caroline Polachek’s since Day Zero of her career. So I wasn’t surprised when she lost her shit at the news that there would be a Caroline Polachek pop-up shop in London featuring all kinds of Caroline-themed merch. She set off, dressed to the nines (in Lauren Perrin, actually, and my Gianvito Rossi shoes, FFS) and made her way to an insanely long queue. She called me when she’d been standing in the wet and cold for nearly two hours and still she was chipper about waiting her turn. And this was all before she knew that the girl herself would be the ultimate surprise pop-in at the pop-up. She could not have been sweeter to my obsessive fan girl. It reminded me of how much time, energy and kindness Taylor Swift has always dedicated to her fans, so I’m predicting that my daughter will have to just accept being one of The Real Ones who must soon share her Caroline Polachek love with an ever-growing fanbase. Thank you for filling my daughter’s phone with joy bombs, Caroline!
So there you have it, you’re almost up to date with my goings-on. I hope they inspire you to appreciate the meaningful moments tucked away in your photos.
Look for joy, and then embrace it! Can't be a bad thing. I absolutely have to write my diary every day, although a lot of it is tediously uninteresting to anyone else. BUT, I do know where the time went, what I did, what I bought and all other sorts of semi-useful stuff. Otherwise I would feel terribly adrift, not knowing where the time went (productively or otherwise). A phone would work too, and much quicker!
Thanks for bringing us something delightfully unexpected!