The first day of Autumn: Back to school?

I woke up at 5.30am this morning, I could hear rain hitting the windows and it was the light from street lamps, not the first morning sun, that was breaking through the shutters. As I crept along the floorboards, my arms around me for warmth, I realised I had woken up in Autumn.


I love Summer, particularly English Summer- fleeting and magical it can be- last weekend I danced in the woods of an ancient forest until 6am- my skin pinked by the sun's full golden roar during the day was soothed by the night air. High Summer in London though can also be a kind of madness, life seems to stop while everyone concentrates on the sun actually shining, Soho even drunker than usual on drink, and humidity and wearing sandals for 2 whole months.


Autumn feels like a new start to me- much more than the real new year it's the time of year when a new school years starts and for me- though my studying days are long gone- that will always mean looking at what I've been in the last 'school' year and what I'm going to do in the next one.

I've been told by lots of grown ups... (which I now define as people who are old than me but I used to define as people quite a lot younger than me too...) that your thirties are your best decade- because you know who you are. Well so far that is true of my thirties, I am in many ways more comfortable in my own skin and know what makes me happy far more than I used to. However I don't feel I've really achieved very much this school year- and the blog has certainly suffered. So it's back to school for me and back to school for my blog.


Goodbye Summer and hello Autumn. With a spritz of scent and a gloss of the lips, here I go.

Picture taken at End of the Road Festival in Dorset.
 

Hotdogs!

Hotdogs are a thing aren't they? Suddenly popping up (ha ha) everywhere- from the obvious places like independent cinemas (why haven't they always served hotdogs? they are traditional, far less noisy or stinky than most cinema snacks and easy to eat in the dark) to the not so expected- the much lauded Hawksmoor for example.

I have always been a hotdog fan. Perhaps it's having a Mother who spent her formative times nearer to New York than London but they were a treat weekend lunch meal (though we never had onions and I still prefer not to have them personally).

I'm also a big fan of the German style wurst and sauerkraut, in or out of a bun- German food isn't very fashionable, though I'm sure the day will come, but I really like it (though they do need to raise their game vegetables wise- cabbage is not an entire food group).

I've tried to go to bubbledogs on about 3 occasions but the wait, in the queue outside, is always at least an hour. Hotdogs really must be a thing if Londoners, not so used to a queue culture as New Yorkers, are prepared to wait outside- in London weather- for London's finest sausages in buns (or baps for the Welsh).

Timeout's thought on london's best hot dogs

For German style wurst I recommend Fulham's Octoberfest. Or you can go the German deli at Borough market, buy your own and get going, very quick and yummy!

Picture from my products I love Pinterest board- though I do not know where it was first pinned from. Pretty cool though!

Irish Moss scented candle from Bog Standard

I have been burning this Irish Moss candle from bog standard in our flat since early January, when the nights were dark and there was snow on the ground.

Now that Summer is looking like it might be here and the candle is just about finishing I wanted to write about the scent while it was still strong in my mind.

I sat in the living room last night, with the French doors open and the cool air lapping in- I preferred to put on a sweater and light the candle than close the doors on the Summer ish air.

I don't know what real moss, Irish or otherwise, smells of really- slightly earthy, wet and musty I suppose. The candle doesn't smell like that- it smells green and fresh but slightly musky, in a good way- it's sophisticated and makes the flat smell cosy on cold nights and slightly heady on warm ones. Above all it's comforting, which I think is the most important thing for a home scent.

If I could wear a scent of this I would- and I'd keep smelling my arm constantly.

Friday

Eifel tower cheese grater, because it's Friday and it made me smile a huge smile when I walked past Octoupus on Carnaby Street this morning.

There is also a tiny version, for camping maybe? or very chic picnics?

Available from Octopus on Carnaby Street or online from Pylones.

Away

I have been thinking about holidays... I have been thinking about holidays a lot.

For some reason what really ignited my interest in away was these Glass igloos in Finland. You can lay in bed looking up at the Northern Lights- coolest thing ever?

I'm normally far more of a hot weather holiday person- part of me really doesn't see the point in going somewhere colder than the UK- and certainly there is no point in going somewhere wetter- though it would perhaps be hard to find such a place.

I think this year I need to not travel too far, partly for personal reasons and partly long haul travel isn't really worth it for less than two weeks in my mind.

So I am thinking lots of mini breaks and for some reason I have also been thinking of a tree house! this one near Glastonbury looks like heaven.

Admittedly it's not cheap, but then how cheap could you expect it to be, it's a deluxe tree house!


 Canopy and Stars has lots of unusual properties, some more tree houses and some unusual yurts and caravans and things for the more adventurous sanitation wise (I'm not very adventurous and will only tolerate outside toilets for festivals- and even then I'd really rather not).

Then for us single types an activity holiday is perhaps better than something solitary (I tend to quite enjoy solitary but that is perhaps why I'm single!!). This yoga holiday on the West Coast of Scotland sounds pretty awesome, ecologically sound but with 'magical hidden hot tubs'.

Or if you want guaranteed heat then, at the other end of the spectrum cost wise perhaps, is a LUX yoga holiday on the Côte D’Azur.

Yes please.

Other ideas:
cookery at an Italian villa
horse riding (always wear a hat!)
or a  reading weekend I, of course, found a scent I loved on my reading weekend in Scotland a few years ago.

I'd also love to go on a perfume holiday but I struggle to find one!

Everywhere else

This Laura Marling interview blew my mind a bit, well that's strong, I was surprised certainly. It made me think about places we live, again.

That a person like Laura Marling could love LA in the way she clearly does was the shock to me- because aside from the hotel I stayed in- which I must say was lovely- I really didn't like LA (beyond thinking the shopping was quite fun and pretending to be in Pretty Woman for the afternoon on Rodeo Drive). You have to get in a taxi to go everywhere, or wait for a bus for a really long time; there are miles and miles of boring roads with traffic jams, life is just films and shops- but not good films, big blockbuster films that they clearly take very seriously. I'm sure my experience shows the difference between being a tourist somewhere and living there, I hear there are great gigs and bars but I didn't find them. I can see the weather would lift the mood- but I even found that a bit relentlessly pleasant.

I have often suspected that what Marling has clearly found to be true though- that we might find a happier or easier version of ourselves somewhere else. Or perhaps more accurately we would be a different person somewhere else. Is it losing the burden of people knowing things about you that makes that so? When you move to University it's a chance to reinvent the you from school, even if you liked that you, it's a chance for change- any kind of move is like that I suppose- be it from East London to West London or London to California.

I occasionally think about moving, I love London and I always knew I wanted to move here as a little girl. For the most part I absolutely love my life here and it would break my heart to have to leave- but I do find more and more when I leave London to go elsewhere in the UK it feels like I'm visiting a different country, I love both countries, or all of them if I'm visiting Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland- but there is an increasing gap. I think finding love anywhere but London is easier, I think you will work less anywhere else. People are very demanding in London in some ways, not considering you to be interesting if you don't have a certain handbag or live in a certain post code on the one hand- then on the other it's perhaps the most tolerant part of the UK and embraces all manner of glorious eccentricities. London is hard but I wouldn't be without it. Sometimes though, I just wonder, what would my life be like somewhere else? What if when I graduated I'd headed off to Brighton, or Scotland- or another country completely.

The Diary of a nose by Jean-Claude Ellena

The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur is a delightful publishing anomaly. This gem of a book was penned by Jean-Claude Ellena, a real artist in the world of perfume- in my opinion- and of course the Hermes in house perfumeur/ superstar.

This book isn't new but, as mentioned below, last year was something of a blur. Reading wasn't something I didn't do but I seemed to gravitate towards books I had read before and strangely perhaps to heavier books in terms of tone and content. I have read that the reason that the crime genre is so eternally popular isn't that we all like mystery but that we like the distraction from our own lives- well I certainly read a lot of Agatha Christie.

This book is a different and less intense kind of distraction- an utter delight for a perfume geek certainly- but probably also for anyone who appreciates reading the diary of someone who truly loves and is good at their work.

Ellena shares all kinds of anecdotes, from his early career to what he ate that day. For me it's like visiting a life I'd love to have, if I was a) any good at Chemistry and b) French- it's a pleasure to read.

The English edition comes in a small hardback book with a lovely dusk pink dust jacket that is about as pretty as a book can be- without being too feminine I hasten to add. I read this in virtually one go but I felt so happy and sophisticated having it in my hands on the bus, at the table in the cafe and lastly tucked up in bed.

My favourite Ellena perfume is Eau des Merveilles- and this book is a wonder, to me. 

Published by Penguin in the UK and available from Anthropology on Regent Street in London- and I'm sure other lovely book shops