A nice time.

It's been a good week. I started it off in Andorra, where I went - via overnight train from Paris - for a long weekend. There was a lot of walking, eating, swimming and more walking. Andorra is weird, but I feel fondly towards it.

On Wednesday, when I was home, the announcement was made about my new book STAUNCH. It's a memoir, my first adult book and my first non-fiction. I am excited about it and also terrified. These days, I only want to put work out into the world if I think it serves a real purpose - and I truly believe this does. That is probably also why the prospect of it makes me feel like one big messy, bloody, beating heart. Ho hum. You can read this labour of love in March next year!

I happened to read this little definition of a long-term relationship in the comments of a random blog of all places, but I have been thinking about it ever since. I don't think I've ever heard real emotional intimacy with another human summed up so incredibly accurately. As much as anything, I'm putting it here because I really want to remember it.

The lovely, lovely comfort of someone to go home to completely be yourself with, immediately worrying about losing them, the boring moments (is this all there is), the really bad mad moments (is this it?), and back again to the romantic luckiness of wow wow I can’t believe I found you and you see me and I see you.

Last night, I found myself singing Joni Mitchell songs to myself in the bath. She sums up a lot of feelings so well; I am struck anew by it every time. Listen to the whole of Blue, then to Court and Spark but only up to and including Car on the Hill. That's my big advice to you.

It's about to be a long weekend and it's going to be sunny. I am hoping to hang out with nice friends, go for some walks, sleep a lot, do some cooking, wear dungarees and do some jobs in the (tiny, concrete) garden. I can't wait.

S-T-A-U-N-C-H

For ages now, I've had a secret. I've been one of those annoying writers with their 'I'm doing a cool thing but I'm not allowed to talk about it yet!' schtick.

Well, let's go back a few steps...

In January 2018 I went to India with my grandmother and two great-aunts. I came back feeling inspired. I met up with my agent at the beginning of February and said I had an idea.

'It's something... different,' I said.

'OMG, write this immediately,' she replied. 'Do it quickly. I want to read it, like, yesterday.'

So I sat at my kitchen table for approximately two months and I wrote a book. It was the easiest and the hardest and the scariest thing I have ever written.

Like all the best things, the words poured out of me with unstoppable force like some kind of weird magic. Then I read it back and wondered if I had actually gone mad, to have put all of this into words. Let alone to consider letting actual people read them.

During that period, I think I only went out once. For a friend's birthday; Sunday lunch in the pub, where I had a cup of tea and hurried home to write some more. That day I met an interesting person with glasses and tattoos and a nice air of kind cleverness.

I finished the book and edited it and then went on holiday to Switzerland with my new friend.

The day after we got back, I had a very nice breakfast at Dishoom with my agent and the publishers who would buy my book.

It's coming out in March 2020 and the nice interesting person and I now live in a house together. I've also given up smoking, cut off all my hair, got some new tattoos and travelled quite a lot. What a time it's been.

Oh, and the book is (of course) called STAUNCH. It's for adults. It's non-fiction. You can find out more about it here and here. I'm excited.

Adore/Endure

I want to move house. I always want to move house. I want to live everywhere.

Then I start thinking about it properly, and the admin seems overwhelming. I like my bookshelves. I like my little postage-stamp sized garden, which these days has a very good variety of herbs.

Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

What I do need to do is make the most of wherever I am each day. Such a simple thing, but a really good one to keep in mind.

I try to walk the long way home from the station in the evening; it's prettier. I have been making a cake every week. I have been doing yoga nearly every day, even if it's just a short one. I've been walking more. I've been swimming in the sea at least once a week.

The other day I walked from south London to east London. I even took a picture of that classic Shoreditch High Street motto - 'Let's Adore And Endure Each Other' - on the way.

I go for a massage once a month now. Somewhat relatedly: I'm comparatively fucking LOADED since I gave up drinking (Day 65 today).

I went out with my lovely friend Holly on Friday night. I drank kombucha cocktails. We discussed how difficult mid-to-late thirties life can be. It's a glorious fucking horrible time. Then again, it made me feel much better when we talked at length about how happiness levels all even out in the end, no matter what we decide now and how it affects us in the future. And I think they really do.

I've signed up for an evening course. I've been writing just for fun. I've been reading a lot. I've been wearing outfits that make me feel very happy, all bought second-hand, which also makes me happy.

While I'm striving so hard to be this more evolved, calm, Zen, organised creature - this article by the goddess Taffy Brodesser-Akner made me laugh and laugh, and feel much better about my real, messy yet quite productive self.

While we're at it, isn't Jia Tolentino as wonderful and talented and smart as everyone says? The best thing is, once I would have been jealous, now I'm old enough just to be pleased she exists.

I Want

My train was delayed today because it was A Bit Hot. Like, by hours. I had finished my book. So I re-listened to Tracey Emin’s Desert Island Discs.

I adore Tracey. I have three of her prints up in my house, including one super-limited edition one that I couldn’t really afford but inexplicably had to have. 

Listening to her talking, it struck me for the first time that - over and above all the usual observations about her - in all of her work, she is so open about WANTING. It is all suffused with unadulterated wanting, yearning, disappointment, fury at the injustice. Maybe that’s what makes people feel so uncomfortable. At its core: Wanting. 

I’d never noticed this theme before. One of her works I have a print of is called I WANT IT ALL. I used to think it was a joke. It’s not a joke. 

She is the opposite of the cool girl. 

I was bred to be the cool girl. Yeah, I’m fun, whatever you want, I don’t mind really. Yeah, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it.

Fuck that. 

Wanting is ugly. Wanting is embarrassing. Shameful, even. Unladylike.

Wanting may even be disgusting. I realise, lately, that I am never more myself than when I am at my least attractive. At my most disgusting. Home alone, sweating in the heat, slumped on the sofa in my pants, pasta-filled belly out, watching that George Harrison documentary AGAIN.

I want to be disgusting and stupid and very clever and sexy and ugly and fucking glorious.

I want to not be ashamed of wanting.

I want everything.

How To Be Luminous

My great friend Harriet Reuter Hapgood writes more beautifully than you can possibly imagine. She recently produced both a book and a baby into the world in the space of one week, that’s the kind of casual over-achiever she is.

Usually, if I read a book and wish I’d written it myself to the point of jealousy, it’s because it has a clever, twisty plot that would be far beyond the limitations of my small brain. However, Harriet could write a book in which nothing happened whatsoever – full of sighs, meaningful glances, no dialogue and solely descriptions of beautiful rooms and outfits – and I would happily spend the rest of my life reading it. I honestly don’t know anyone else on the face of this planet who has her gift for unusual description, unexpected detail and sighingly gorgeous lycricism.

Her new book, HOW TO BE LUMINOUS, tells the story of the three teenage sloe sisters. Their famous artist mother has disappeared and Minnie, the middle sister, has lost her ability to see colour. There are gorgeous boys, even more gorgeous settings, outfits I wish were real and in my wardrobe, fictional artworks that I can see right in front of me, and a rabbit called Salvador Dali. There are roses and sequinned platform shoes and secrets and wild swimming and a thousand shades of bright pink and existential angst.

Her first book, THE SQUARE ROOT OF SUMMER, is also wonderful but I think I love this one even more. I highly recommend reading both. She is frequently compared to Jandy Nelson – company of the highest order and very aptly deserved.

In short. I do not even have the linguistic skills to convey how beautiful Harriet’s writing is. It makes me feel like Georgia O’Keeffe and PJ Harvey and Sylvia Plath do, but about teenage girls in South London. I can’t wait for all the things she’s going to do next. The word ‘humbled’ is overused and I hate it but… yeah, that.

As well as being a very proud friend, I also really like this sensible and wise article on being single by Garance Dore. I think she’s a pretty cool woman.

I also bought some tiny Ivy Park shorts on Depop (I only buy second-hand clothes now). I bought them from a cool teenage girl and now totally feel like one when I’m out running. It’s a great feeling.

I have been drinking a lot of kombucha. Fun. Today I’m 42 days sober (the longest since I was 14 years old) and I’m told this is where it gets really good. Incidentally, I have now not smoked in 9 months. This almost passed me by, and it feels normal now, most of the time.

I presume you already do Yoga With Adriene, but stepping up to doing at least one of her (usually short) videos every day has changed my life for the better.

Last night, we ate pasta sauce made with olives from the garden and few things have ever made me happier.

Things are really not too bad on this humid, London, sleepy, wearing my boyfriend’s shirt to work Monday morning.

Maybe useful, maybe not

I’ve been making a lot of stuff lately. I’ve been low-key productive, focused on the small things. It’s been nice. I find pottering very relaxing. These things make me feel in control when I’m not. I really value peace, at the moment. Also I like it when the end product outweighs the effort involved.

I’m trying hard to live a little bit healthily, for myself and the world.

Here are some of the things I’ve been making and doing, in case it’s useful to you.

This recipe for kimchi has really improved my life. It’s so easy, it keeps, it’s good for your gut, and it makes a really good dinner just with a bowl of rice. I leave out the weird addition of carrots, but once I used the spicy pickling paste just to pickle some carrots on their own, because they were sitting about getting a bit old, and they were incredible. The moral of the story is: spicy pickle anything and everything. Also apple cider vinegar works just fine if, like me, that is your thing.

This very, very basic jam recipe is great if you have any fruit that needs using up. If you feel a little bit fancy, you can add vanilla or balsamic vinegar or thyme. I have some foraging planned.

You can then have your homemade jam on these vegan pancakes for ridiculous smug levels. They are among the best pancakes I have ever made, vegan or no, and so simple you might as well just make them every Sunday. Yay grown-up life.

Who knew that making your own oat milk was SO EASY? Also: ridiculously cheap and saves on packaging (buy your oats from a bulk store and take your own jar!)

Making your own rice milk is also very easy, but I find it a bit less delicious. Still, worth doing if you just have a bit of cooked rice leftover, which you can then use to make chia pudding.

Making your own hummus, if you do it from dried chickpeas bought in bulk, also saves a lot of those little plastic tubs if you get through as much hummus as I do.

Now that I’ve tuned into reducing packaging, it’s hard not to think about it at all times. So just to cut things down, I’d also recommend this deodorant (all natural, comes in paper packaging, works really well) and this luxurious shampoo bar (invented by my friend Jonathan and probably the fanciest shampoo bar there is, although I also quite like the Lush Godiva one).

If, like me, you have limited outdoor space and limited gardening skill/time, I also recommend plants and seeds from the pound shop. I’ve got some carrots growing on my kitchen windowsill from a pack of 79p seeds. I just sprinkled them around and hoped for the best, and magic seems to be happening.

I could, should and hopefully will do more of the above type stuff. Please send me your recs (ideally on Instagram, where I now spend all of my time looking for eco life hacks and sexy sobriety). Thanks!

Holiday Friends

A weekend of many a seaside jaunt, including going to see my friend Paul Murray sing some lovely songs and we all talked about whether we should move to Worthing. Paul is of the marvellous musical duo Bee & Jackrabbit and, as always, I am astounded that they are not internationally renowned and revered, TBH.

If, like me, you also watched series 3 of Stranger Things in one big gulp and are now slightly bereft - here is another little musical gem that echoes my many strong feelings about Steve Harrington.

I've now started watching Call My Agent, which is fun. It's really trashy, but in a glamorous way because it's French.

I also went swimming, which was nice. I should go swimming more.

Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast and ate them with homemade jam, and few things have ever brought me more joy. I have high hopes of our late homegrown carrots, and a plethora of pickling plans. The herb garden is coming on beautifully. I have homemade kimchi in my packed lunch today. I've got my eye on some blackberries for foraging.

I wonder if this sudden and virulent enthusiasm for preserving things in jars is a futile reaction to the terrible state of the world at large. Probably. It's the sort of thing that can make you feel like you're in control of events when you're really, really not. Oh well.

Conversely, watching a lot of rubbish late-night horror films and Japanese wrestling. Grown-up life can be pretty great.