Five Things I Have Learned In 2021
At the risk of sounding like one of those Round Robin newsletters that you used to get in Christmas cards, 2021 has been a fairly busy year which is surprising considering that for half of it, we were pretty much in a lockdown. My house has fared the worst (or best, whichever way you want to look at it) from the effects of my homebound status. I’ve completely revamped the kitchen at almost no cost whatsoever, not just once but twice, using the wondrous power of paint. I cried copious tears after almost totally bolloxing up the living room floor by forgetting to shake the chalk stain before application. I’ve allowed myself hours of shelf styling fun after adding five 3m lengths of painted scaffold to the wall in the family room and ditched the pink front door for Arsenic. I’ve tiled the hallway, painted the stairs and banisters black and rearranged more walls of prints than York Art Gallery. And on top of that, I’ve (AKA Mike The Builder) added an extra room to my home by whacking a glass roof on the courtyard. Honestly, I wear MYSELF out just thinking about it.
It’s been a busy year for Buddy.
In other family news, Buddy has worked both bravely and tirelessly to further his career as an Instagram Dog, dressing uncomplainingly (well, almost) as both Wedding Day Moira Rose AND the Angel Gabriel for the cause and appearing in countless brand advertorial for my work, with his only payment being a pat on the head and a B&M Stores chicken stick. I have finally lost a child to University after the previous years debacle, although tbf she appears to be home at weekends more often than not, a fact confirmed by the abundance of dirty clothes, half drunk bottles of summer fruit gin and discarded shoes which litter the hallway. Max miraculously passed his driving test and we’ve barely seen him since and Leo has spent approximately 85% of the year hanging around with his friends in parks with a Tesco meal deal (my Go Henry notifications keep me updated on his dietary purchases). I’ve moved to a fully electric car and can confirm that range anxiety is real, particularly if you are driving to Liverpool and back and Joe has managed to go a full ten months without once getting on his Pelaton, no mean feat indeed. Yes, we have lived the life. But the best thing about this year? Like many of us, being reunited with my extended family after so long apart beat EVERYTHING hands down.
When I was planning this blog, it was actually really hard to think of what to say that wasn’t directed by bloody Covid. It’s been the oddest of years - kicking out 2021 and welcoming 2022 couldn’t have come quick enough. Honestly, I feel as if I spent the entire holiday period thinking ‘not long now, it’s almost next year’ as if a refresh of the date would change EVERYTHING. I often try and think of positive things that have come from two years of uncertainty and if asked the question where would I most like to be if given the choice, my answer would for sure be in the joy of my own home, a response which is certainly influenced by this bastard of a pandemic. If you had previously asked me that question, I would definitely have included several hot countries, my local wine bar and most probably a multi floor Zara but no, not now. Lockdown created a virtual comfort blanket around the walls of our house and even when the blanket was finally whipped off, I didn’t really want to leave. Why would I? A solid eight hours of sleep a night, a wardrobe of rotational loungewear and slippers and a list as long as my arm of Netflix shows and TV dramas to watch. Because I wasn’t travelling to London or having to drop my kids anywhere, I made actual planned proper dinners at night; I was more regulated with working hours as there were no interruptions, meaning I could be on the sofa by 6.00 pm every evening. I discovered more about my children than I had known prior; we even sat together as a family at night (I’d be lying if I said that this was spent playing board games and chatting current affairs - we bonded over a parade of horror films, Love Island and Netflix series). See, there are positives to be found in every situation if you look hard enough.
So, what have I learned in this crazy, stressful, unpredictable, couldn’t-make-it-up-if-you-tried madness of 2021? Here are my top findings (with a bit of a dash of tongue in cheek, obvs).
My best vintage buy of the year, the bamboo and rattan sofas which I found on eBay.
I Am A Confirmed Vintage Addict
I have always been obsessed with the lure of the charity shops and second hand stores. I’ve said before that give me a day off and I’ll happily spend it pounding the boards of our local St Leonards Hospice outlet or pushing my way through the dusty aisles of a junk shop. I would laugh in the face of a spa day if I were offered a trip to a house clearance warehouse, scoff at a smart restaurant dinner were a trip to an antiques fair on the cards. Years ago, I always felt slightly out on a limb with my slightly musty finds, the furniture treasures with a faint odour of ‘Eau De Old People Wee’ with which I adorned my home. I cannot count the number of times that my family’s faces have sunk when I’ve returned home from a trawling expedition with a Co Op Bag For Life filled with ‘other people’s worthless old shit’ (their words, not mine). But here’s the thing - it’s NOT other people’s worthless old shit. Okay, sometimes it might be a bit shit but it’s not worthless because once, it meant something to them and now, it means something to me. It’s now in my house, complete with it’s own history (I may not be fully equipped with it’s historical background but it will always have one) and I LOVE IT. It’s preloved but now reloved, saving it from landfill and giving it a new lease of life.
This year, I added a glass roof to my courtyard space to create a new room and took great joy in using as many preloved and recycled items that I could. The floor tiles were reclaimed terracotta, the chairs picked up from various second hand outlets over the period of the build. But I didn’t wholly fit it out with thrift because one of the fun things about styling your home is to mix these vintage buys with newer investment pieces so that the space is truly sustainable (avoiding the ‘retirement home’ look is key to getting it right). Take the vintage bamboo sofa that I bought from eBay for a song - I recovered the 1990’s patterned cushions in a velvet ribbed sage cord from Kirkby Design, which gives this vintage piece a more contemporary look that will last the course. I scoured the internet for vintage Spanish pottery and filled the shelves with beautiful finds, marrying them with newer ceramic purchases from independent makers which work alongside. I’ve repurposed items from other areas of my home - my £10 sideboard buy from ten years ago, the Homesense Clearance lamp bases to which I’ve added new shades, my cookery book collection. Even though Mike The Builder still walks into the space and asks if I’d like him to take my bamboo sofa to the skip (yes, he’s hilarious), it WORKS. Preloved, reused, repurposed and recycled is not only beneficial to your pocket, but it’s also beneficial to the planet.
50 years old and VERY HAPPY TO BE HERE.
Being 50 Is Great
In 2021, I turned 50 years old. Let’s face it, it’s a huge number. If I were to look back at my parents wedding photos, my grandparents can’t have been more than my age but Jesus, they looked about 80. Back in the 1960’s, it seemed that reaching this milestone caused you to physically morph overnight into Mary Whitehouse (Google, millennials) complete with rinse and set and in many cases, accompanying personal views. Now, being 50 is a cause for celebration, a hurrah for just being here in my case after cancer eight years ago made me doubt that I would be. Okay, so there are a ‘few’ downsides to reaching this menopausal benchmark. In my twenties, I could throw back the Harvey Wallbangers nightly with only a corned beef sandwich for dinner and STILL bounce into work in the morning. Nowadays, two small glasses of wine midweek will give me night sweats, sleep anxiety and require Alka Seltzer XL before I can even start to move towards functionality. The thirties me could decide she wanted to fit back into a dress for the weekend on the Monday, cut out the crisps and chocolate and be hot to trot by the Saturday - fast forward to fifty and even eating like Peter Rabbit for a month wouldn’t do the job unless I’m pounding a treadmill and doing high impact cardio (never going to happen). And 40’s Lisa didn’t even NEARLY appreciate her taut facial skin which didn’t require five types of serum, cream and possible medical procedures to stop it from dropping southward. Sigh.
However, I can tell you now that despite these downsides, turning 50 has the most positive of upsides and that is that you SIMPLY DON’T GIVE A FUCK. It’s a game changer. Gone are the playground years where my friendships were based on who my children hung out with in class; now, I have friends based on shared interests that don’t include the 11 plus or lift sharing to trampolining. I am far less tolerant - of most things - than I used to be; not a negative but a positive as it means that my stress levels are limited as I don’t put myself into situations where I become anxious. I am happy to say no - whether it be to social events, to work, to going out for dinner when I’d rather be sitting on the sofa watching Netflix with my husband. I am more indulgent with myself when it comes to spending money - if I can afford it, for example, I’ll buy the expensive mascara rather than the cheaper one as I’ve worked for it and I’m worth it (Joe loves this mindset, obvs). But most of all, I’m just happy to be here EVERY SINGLE DAY. Life is a gift and every birthday is a bonus. CS Lewis said ‘you are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream’. This year, I’ll be turning 51 and setting more goals and dreaming more dreams and most of all, doing what makes me happy. Bring it on.
Delirious with no toenails left.
I Am Not An Ultra Athlete
Back in January, my friends Sarah and Sharon asked me if I wanted to take part in an Ultra Challenge to walk fifty kilometres in a day. If you’ve followed me for a while, you will know that I am the least active person in York (if not the UK, in fact) and have to this point previously only been the owner of ‘fashion’ trainers. I am renowned for not walking anywhere (not even to BATA the local garage which is five minutes away) and have never once got on a bus during our entire eight year residency of North Yorkshire. We live surrounded by fields and country trails, yet not a single pair of wellingtons have ever graced my feet. Ironically one of my first jobs ever in my late teens was working for the American fitness company StairMaster, who were the original producers of the stepping machine (not to be confused with the up and down stair lift for old people). I worked for them for three years and proudly managed not to step on a single piece of fitness equipment throughout my entire employment. It was possibly one of the easiest jobs ever known. There were only five of us in the UK arm of the brand and the sales team were out almost all of the working day, leaving me as office assistant sitting alone at my desk. I spent the majority of my time entering competitions in Take A Break magazine, illegally whizzing them through the franking machine whilst listening to Simon Mayo’s God Of The Day on my desktop radio.
Anyway, I digress. Once Sarah and Sharon got over the shock of me saying yes, we started planning our training programme. There was a really good reason for completing this challenge - our friend Marie is founder of OSCAR’s Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity, which she and her husband had set up after they lost their son Oscar eight years ago. Since then, Marie’s husband Ian had also passed away and their five year old son Milo was also very ill with a tumour and we wanted to raise as much money as we could to support the charity and fund research into this devastating condition. The walk was scheduled for July but rather unwisely, we didn’t actually start training (read: two walks across the fields) until June and my first walking outfit was a Mango lounge suit and Osweego trainers, both wholly unsuitable for someone about to undertake an Ultra Challenge. After updating my activewear wardrobe, I was feeling fairly confident, despite the fact that the scheduled event date of 21 July was due to be the hottest day of the year. It was just walking, surely - how hard could it be, ffs? One foot in front of another, even I with my complete lack of cardio fitness could manage that, surely. So how did we do? We did it in 15 hours (three hours longer than we had anticipated) and yes, it was BLOODY hard work. I realised that despite the fact that I felt like I could have walked forever, my feet didn’t agree and the resulting blisters were an OUTRAGE. The following day I had to go to hospital to have my toes dealt with and even now, I am still losing the rest (last week my big toenail fell off which totally ruined all my fishnet tights/sandal Christmas outfit plans). But it was worth every moment as we managed to raise £5,000 for OSCAR’s Charity in memory of Oscar, Ian and Milo. Would I do it again? No. Nope. Not a chance. In future, I’ll be keeping my fundraising activities to ones that don’t involve carrying a backpack. The Ultra Athlete life is not for me.
One of the more crazy jobs I had this year - repainting and styling my room orange for Aperol.
Creating Social Content Is STILL FUN
Six years ago, we moved into our house here in York and I started posting pictures of the rooms on Instagram as I decorated. At the time, there were around 400m users of this photo sharing app; now, there are well over a billion. When I started, my core demographic was almost purely 25-35 year olds, the original users of social media since the inception of Facebook in 2004. Now, it’s a solid 35-55 which shows how the app has developed and grown to a wider and more varied audience. Originally, posts were shown chronologically - I remember going through my feed daily and knowing when I had seen and liked all the accounts that I followed as the little hearts were already tapped. Godammit, that was easy. Before there were even Stories (I know, imagine right?), there were simply static photo posts - now there are 60 second Reels and videos, IGTV, Highlights, strategic Instagram placed adverts; basically everything and anything you can imagine and it’s impossible even for someone like me for whom Instagram is a full time job to keep up with it all, let alone a social user. But it’s STILL a great place, despite it’s hugeness. There is nowhere better to meet likeminded people. I have made really good friends and colleagues on this platform that I would never have had the chance to meet before as the opportunity would never have arisen, brought together by a love of the same things (mostly interiors but also cocktails and a good boxset).
But best of all, Instagram encourages user creativity, constantly updating the space and pushing us to learn new skills to create interesting and appealing content which isn’t restricted to those who use the platform for work. Even if you just use Instagram for social or inspirational purposes, it’s brilliant to stretch your creative boundaries and try something new - there are countless apps that you can use to have some fun with (try Splice or Filmm, both of which are simple editing tools for gluing clips together, adding filters, music or transitions). You can up your photo game with editing apps such as Snapseed or Touch Retouch and create professional looking Stories and posts using Unfold or Wordswag - you can find ALL of these apps on the App Store and they’re very easy to use. EVERYONE has an element of creativity within them and Instagram is the very best of enablers - social media has democratised creative roles and encouraged people with no media, photographic or video production background to learn new skills and create businesses doing all of these roles themselves. A content creator on Instagram is a videographer, photographer, editor, stylist and creative director, all tied up into one package and it’s endlessly inspiring. I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed that the naturally competitive nature of our society doesn’t turn this independently creative platform into a stream of professionally produced content which counteracts the very core of what makes Instagram unique.
Bring on 2022, I am ready for you.
I Haven’t Pressed My Stop Button
I’ve been writing this blog for six years and this is always my fifth point (I am nothing if not consistent). During the first lockdown, I wrote a book called Resourceful Living (not the easiest of tasks when you have three children at home, two of which who had literally fuck all to do thanks to exam cancellation #stillbitter) and in April of 2021, it was published. I have to admit that seeing my own writing in print was the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me and it never fails to make me happy when I see it on bookshelves. Quite annoyingly, bloody Covid got in the way of any proposed publicity type situation but hey, there were significantly bigger things going on in the world than my book launch. Despite this, it’s done really quite well (my most exciting moment was walking into Anthropologie on Regent Street and seeing it displayed right at the front) and I’m forever grateful to Kyle Books for asking me to write it. In other news - amongst other things - I presented at Telegraph Live, did a workshop for the BBC Womens Network, worked for several major brands talking and presenting to Press about trends, contributed to various articles including a piece for The Independent and was even an Ambassador for vegan food brand, Goodlife. I talked A LOT about sustainable design and living for various brands, including Geberit for whom I contributed to their 2022 Trend Report. But mostly, I was lucky enough to work on some amazing campaigns for a varied plethora of brands including John Lewis, Argos, Barbour, Harlequin, Sonos, eBay, Whitley Neill and Aromatherapy Associates, to name just a few. Yes, I was quite busy.
Work aside, I have ripped through my house like a crazy person, ruthlessly selling and donating stuff from under my family’s noses before they’ve even noticed it’s gone and replacing it with eBay finds and well thought out new pieces. I’ve added another room by putting a glass hat over the courtyard and creating a brand new space for my poor plants to live in peace (albeit pretty bloody cold at the moment, I cannot lie). I’ve even waded my way through piles of discarded knickers to decorate Ella’s bedroom and made it possible for the uninitiated to enter without feeling anxious. I’ve got out my hammer, nails and drill more times than I’ve made hot dinners (my family are VERY happy with ham sandwiches for tea, I’ll have you know). In addition to these activities, I’ve eaten loads of crisps, scoffed plenty of cake, drunk shed loads of wine and watched an outrageous amount of television, for which I am totally non contrite. There is no doubt that 2021 has been a hugely stressful, extremely odd and very worrying year for everyone, but I can take heart in the fact that my Netflix and TV drama knowledge is now encyclopaedic and that if Squid Games actually happened, I’d know how to play it. Next stop, Mastermind. Specialist subject, Selling Sunset.
I’ve been writing this blog now for six years and I never fail to get joy from the fact that anybody reads it at all - I’m unbelievably grateful to all of you who subscribe and continue to do so and to those of you who have bought and read my book. This year will be busy but I’ll continue to produce the Saturday Niche Edit on my Instagram Stories (compiling these edits is my favourite part of the week, tbh). I’ve also got a truly exciting work project coming up in the next few months that I cannot WAIT to tell you about closer to the time. But most of all, I’ll still be here on my blog (every two weeks mostly but posting weekly when I can) and on my Instagram account, bombarding you with my endless home updates and ideas, charity shop trawls, high carb content food Reels and television recommendations alongside my extremely random Story chat. Thanks so much to everyone who has continued to read and support me this year and I hope that 2022 kicks bastard Covid into touch and brings you all good health, lots of laughter and plenty of good TV dramas.