Nigella Lawson says, “don’t bring flowers to a dinner party because then the hostess has to go and find a vase.” I see her point, it can be nuisance, especially if she’s saving a soufflé or filling 20-glasses with the cocktail of the hour. I usually plonk the blooms in a sink of water and tend to them once everyone has a drink in hand. Because, even if those ranunculus are getting in the way of my rhythm, who in the world isn’t made happier by the sight of fresh flowers?
If you’re at the Met Gala –– the single most important event on the fashion calendar –– wearing a red column, (Reese, I’m looking at you) then perhaps you shouldn’t be there. This is the night for flamboyant and frivolous, for daring and audacious. Yes, this is the night for a canary yellow dress with a fur trimmed train that chugs on for miles. Bravo Rihana. Bravo SJP. And bravo to anyone with chtuzpah enough to be ridiculed and revered, from here to Shanghai.
Sometimes my children ask me if I know any witches. “Yes. Your Yiayia.” My mother and her girlfriends are these brilliantly eccentric, bonkers mad women that would have totally been burned at a stake were they living in medieval England. They’ve known each other for decades, cackle like crazy and share a loyalty that is fierce. We, their daughters, are sadly nowhere near as weird. But with 25-years on us, we’ve time to cultivate it.
Aunt Polixene made really good cakes. It didn’t matter that they came out of a box. It was the love that she poured into them that made them taste good. Like my great aunt, I’m a big fan of the add an egg and water brand of baking. Unless it’s one of my children’s birthdays, on which occasion I’ll pull out all the stops, put on a pinny and make a cake from scratch. What frustrates me though, as they get older, is how different our taste in cakes are. While I picture layers of vanilla sponge smothered in buttermilk frosting and topped with fresh peonies and macarons, they see pirate ships and Disney princesses. With Iole’s birthday coming up, I showed her a Victoria sponge cake with piles of mascarpone and fresh strawberries sandwiched between each layer. She scoffed at that. How about this lovely cake, I suggested. Non. She has her heart set on a candyfloss pink princess Barbie cake. Which is what most little girls want when they’re a smidgen shy of six. It will take me a week, and make her day. Auntie P. would be proud as punch.
It’s rare that I check the weather forecast. And so it happens that I get caught in rainstorms with no brolly or send children to school wearing wooly sweaters on unseasonably warm days. The flip-side is that I never let a bit of drizzle get in the way of a good plan. Imagine how many picnics have been cancelled due to a rainstorm that never comes. When you grow up in a town where it rains (or there’s a chance of rain) almost everyday of the year, you just accept soggy toes and damp hair, and get on with your day. But a pretty brolly, is never a bad idea.
I rarely wear gloves in the winter, or when I’m washing up. And then I wonder why my hands look the way they do. Lines on a woman’s face tell the story of her life. Does the same apply to the ones around her knuckles? This morning I bought a very expensive cream, in an attempt to have hands like Leandra’s. It’s already underneath my kitchen sink, with my stash of marigolds.
I have had two brief stints behind a wheel. The first was in the late 90s, when a tanned and tiny Mrs. da Silva tried to teach me to drive along the winding island roads of Bermuda. “Watch your speed,” she’d croak, as I’d accelerate above 25 mph. The car was a station wagon with wooden panels and I had to sit on three cushions just to see over the windscreen. My second round of lessons was a few years later in London with a guy called Carl who smelled of curry and turned green every time we neared a roundabout. I couldn’t get used to the clutch, the stop-start traffic, roundabouts or Carl’s scent. So I gave up on the idea of driving, moved to Toronto, and bought a bicycle instead. Once in a while, when I’m pushing two children with wet hair in the dead of winter uphill through Chinatown, I wish I had a car. But the rest of the time, I’m happy to walk. Or hail a Taxi. “Driving is a life skill,” I can hear my grandmother saying as she drove me to Mrs. da Silva all those years ago. But Yiayia –– I can swim and cycle and bake a cake from scratch –– surely, that counts for something? Of course, if this rolled into our rickety old garage, I’d be on the phone to Mrs. da Silva in a heartbeat.
The ultimate luxury is choosing simplicity. That’s how I feel about the homes in Mirjam Bleeker and Frank Visser’s At the Ocean. There is a house with hot pink walls in a small fishing port in Costa Brava, a gorgeous, wooden holiday home on the coast south of Valparaiso in Chile and a hut on the beach off the coast of the Arabian Sea.
My favourite interiors are ones where colours clash and styles collide. While I appreciate symmetry and order, (hence my non-stop urge to plump cushions and tidy toys) I think that it’s touches of humour, unpredictability and chaos that make a house a home.
Like most little girls, my five-year-old daughter Iole loves to wear my heels. I’m quite amazed by the confidence with which she totters about in them. This morning she handed me a vertiginously high and shimmery Louboutin and asked me to try it on. I felt like one of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters as I tried to pour my plump little feet into this size-less-than-perfect pump. They did once fit, but they don’t anymore, and weirdly, I’m not too disappointed. My feet are my locomotive, and they’ve walked the world. They’ve also carried the loving weight of three beautiful babies. I won’t get rid of all the patent pumps and sparkly stilettos as they’re mementos of dancing days gone bye. But today, its trainers and ballerinas, (or anything I can chase a 4-year-old boy on a scooter in) that I wear. Flats suit my lifestyle –– plus I’m happier with my feet closer to the ground.
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