Every  year, on Halloween, I wear a long, black ruffled ballgown that belonged to my Mum. If witches wore decadent, designer gowns, this dress would fit the bill. She bought it in the late 70s from a shop called Spaghetti that drew young socialites with a flare for the bohemian. The owner, Nadia La Valle spend time in both Morocco and Bombay, and this was reflected in her rich and opulent designs. Never would my Mum have imagined that her daughter would one day make it her signature spooky time costume, and wear it to trick-or-treat through Toronto’s streets. I don’t think she minds at all, in fact, she loves that I wear it at all. And if truth be told, I’m rarely on the streets, but mostly indoors, sipping wine and scaring small children with my cackle.

I stumbled upon Florence Boniface’s Instagram feed today. Flo is from London, and is currently adventuring around the world with her boyfriend and sharing stories as she goes. They’ve spent a year in South & Central America and are now on a working visa in Auckland, New Zealand.  I’m always inspired when I read about people’s around-the-globe adventures. I know it’s never as romantic as it looks, and that travel comes with challenges, and that real life follows us wherever we go, but there’s something so gutsy and grateful about those who try. This photo was taken in Wanaka, New Zealand.

Piling pumpkins on the porch isn’t my thing. I’m not a fab of gourds, even on-trend millennial pink ones. But this image –– such a decadent display –– snapped by a London photographer stopped me in my tracks. The giant one looks like it went to Cinderella’s ball last night.

“We’re always trying to find somebody whose broken pieces fit with our broken pieces, and something whole emerges,” croons Bruce Springsteen in his latest project, Western Stars. In the concert film, Springsteen transforms an old old barn into a music hall, and in the company of family and friends, performs thirteen tracks off his new album of the same name. In between songs, we catch glimpses of his life through photos and old video footage, while Springsteen (who wrote and co-directed the film) shares details of the journey that brought him to each song. I wanted more storytelling –– his voice is hypnotic –– and more of his wife, Patti Scialfa to whom the film was a “love letter.” But the music blew me away. A 30-piece orchestra accompanied each song, creating a sound that is classic Bruce, and utterly new.

I would love to make a documentary on why women swim. I see so much visual possibility, and I can imagine a great many stories –– funny ones, moving ones, inspiring ones –– being shared. I think many women choose the water after some kind of trauma. A surgery, perhaps, or an emotional struggle. It’s a gentle, soothing place. You feel your limbs stretching, your breath regulating. We are 60 per cent water. Swimming is intuitive. It’s instinctual. It’s nature. I don’t believe most women swim to achieve a perfect body. I think we swim to feel comfort and wellness in the body we have. Many women swim through pregnancy, as it gives them the gift of weightlessness. Many swim after childbirth because it feels like a gentle way to take care of a post-partum body. It’s one of the first activities that many new Mums do with their babies. It’s where women come to be alone, but to feel buoyed by the water, and their fellow swimmers. After three babies, and many years running on hard tarmac, swimming was the antidote I needed. It felt like a kinder approach to exercise, and something I could sustain for the rest of my life. I know a number of women, well into their 70s who have swum all their lives. You see it in their faces, as much as you see it in their bodies. A serenity, I think. One lady at my community pool, wears lipstick to match her frilly hat. Swimming is an occasion. Another lady spends as much time nattering to the young life guards as she does pushing her flutter board up and down the lane. But everyone seems as comfortable in water, as they are on land. “More, actually,” says a mother of three teenagers. She swims like an amphibian, with long, exaggerated movements that have become her signature. “For me, swimming is a meditation. I write speeches while I swim, work through arguments, solve problems, zone out. It’s exercise, and so much more.” The water, the ritual, it keeps women centered. “When you enter the water, something like a metamorphosis happens,” writes Roger Deakin in his 1998 book on swimming. I couldn’t agree more. Something happens to us, we are reminded that we are akin to whales, and designed to do this.

What a lovely combination of daffodils, tulips and roses. Three such classic blooms, in an arrangement that’s anything but. It’s the mix of fried egg daffs and dusty pink roses that got me. I’d plonk them all together in a tall tin cylinder with something green, like Eucalyptus branches.