Passementerie

Maybe I should just admit it?

The fact is, my darling readers, that my life has become busier recently than it possibly ever has before!  Getting Natural History up and running has been, as you might imagine, terribly time-consuming, then there's Beatrice of course (and how could I grudge her a *moment* of my non-work time? I could bore you with a list of the adorable things she does every day, but I dread the appellation of "mommyblog" so I'll remain silent on these points) who at 21 months (or thereabouts?) is a fulltime job in herself.

And well, that's not all, because I'm pregnant again.  Four months, to be precise, and am due to produce a baby of some description (as yet unknown, so far as gender is concerned) in late March next year.  I am VERY VERY excited about this and can't wait to have a newborn that I ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH.  It will make quite a change...

I read once that there is no point runinng a blog unless you can update it three times a week as I am down to twice a month at this point I am going to come clean and make it official - as of now, Passementerie is on hiatus for the rest of the autumn.  I will have a think in the new year and decide whether I can put the time into it then to make it worth your while following me, but in the meantime if you would like to stay in touch I can be found on Twitter as Natural_History and of course at the Natural History blog - http://www.naturalhistory.typepad.com/

Thank you so very, very much for sticking with me all this time.  Without Passementerie there would have been no Natural History and for that I am very, very grateful - you gave me the inspiration and the confidence to change my career path so dramatically.  Thank you so much and please stay in touch with me - I'll miss you!

Where on earth have I been?

Well, mostly I have been sitting here in Oxford, wondering about errant builders (they came back today after an absence of TEN WHOLE DAYS) and trying to unteach my baby to swear.  Note: don't place too much faith in the reluctance of a toddler to speak - she will suddenly repeat your husband's expletive of SHITSHITSHIT upon dropping a plate with remarkable fluency and delight.  We have a nasty suspicion the her very sweet exclamation of "Oh MUSH!" when something goes wrong is actually her version of the f-word, so we have instigated a dramatic reform of language at home.  Okay, *I* have instigated the reform - my husband is actually quite clean-spoken, it must be said.

But that isn't all I've been doing - last week was the interior design fair Maison et Objet in Paris and a dear friend had kindly agreed (!) to come with me to keep me company - we abandoned our infants with our respective husbands, rented a fantastic flat near Bastille and had a FABULOUS few days involving afternoon tea at the Crillon, long slow evening walks through the most lovely parts of Paris, the show itself, of course and lots of fabby meals.  

I had one extra night in Paris which I spent in a hotel, having passed the flat over to my father and uncle, who were coming to stay for the rest of the week, and I stayed in the adorable Hotel Caron de Beaumarchais, a sweet hotel which I had walked past many, many times, and remembered when I was stuck for somewhere nice but not too expensive to stay for my last night. 

Being a Paris hotel for under 200 euros a night, the room was small (although not terrifyingly so) but the sweet decoration and the lavish breakfast in bed made up for it. 

Sadly I was kept up for half the night with a badly-timed tummy bug, so was not as rested as I had hoped I would be for our day at the fleamarkets on Monday, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment of poking around endless shops.  I came away sadly empty-handed, although I found a lot that I liked, as prices had crept up just enough in the last couple of years to make shopping there less appealing than it might be. The one chair I did like was being sold by a deeply disagreeable and unhelpful man who made me quite reluctant to give him anything like the (admittedly not unreasonable) price he wanted.

What I would really like is a pair of these chairs below.  This one is currently for sale on Ebay in the US, if you are interested (the auction has nothing to do with me - I just like the chair).

Crillon photo with thanks to here.

Appearances? What appearances?

So the builders came and went and DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN but my garden is a mess.  The work isn't finished yet - they're coming back tomorrow to carry on, although the building itself is actually there and looks fantastic beyond belief - I'm really, really happy with it!  They were able to fit it in without moving my bamboo, which means that it already looks as though it has been there for a while, which is great.

I'm not posting any pictures yet, because I don't think I could bear the sympathy that you would all shower upon me if you saw the state of my poor beleaguered garden - the builders had to take out about 3 tonnes of earth in order to get the garden room low enough to meet height regulations and it is all in a huge mound on the lawn along with a bizarre variety of other things they extracted (the lump of concrete about the size of ME that once formed the base of a clothes line - what were these people DRYING? Polar bear meat?).

Next week, when everything is finished, rather than trying to get rid of the soil, I'm going to get someone in to spread it over the garden and then lay more turf.  The cost of having it removed (through the house!) would far exceed the cost of the turf etc., awkward as it sounds.

My father, who was staying with me while John was in Crete, has gone back to Ireland now and John is currently on his way back from Gatwick.  When he nears Oxford he will call me, I will order Thai takeaway from a FANTASTIC restaurant near our house, and he will collect it as he passes, arriving home just after Beatrice has been put to bed.  What perfect timing.

I love these photographs - it's all in the details - sfgirlbybay - go admire now.

Keeping Up Appearances

The last two weeks have been my busiest in a *very* long time, but also probably the most productive.  Among many other projects, we are having a garden room installed this week.  At the time,  I negotiated like mad with the garden room people for the lowest possible price and one of the things they trimmed off in order to meet the figure I wanted was the site clearing service so this was something I was going to have to sort out myself.  What an unpleasant surprise I had when I discovered that removing the garden shed (and contents), disposing of 1.5 tonnes of rubble and THEN clearing the site was going to cost *well* in excess of £600...

Normally I am quite happy to decide what I am or am not willing to do and then pay someone else to do the "am not willing" bits, but this was far too much, so more inventive approaches were going to have to be dreamt up.  But of course, I am nothing if not resourceful, so a week later the garden room people are happily installing away on a perfectly cleared site that cost me no more than £125 thanks to:

a) the friendly builders on the building site behind the house who lifted the fence and took away the 1.5 tonnes of rubble FOR FREE

b) the glorious denizens of Oxford Freecyle who took away the garden shed, all of its contents, 15 gigantic paving slabs and about 100 paving bricks

c) my neighbour who gladly made off with about 50 Victorian red bricks

d) the amazing people who watch the Jobs Offered page on Oxford Daily Info like HAWKS and inundate you with phone calls and emails when you advertise for someone to clear and prep the garden room site (£100) and someone to take all the garden waste to the dump/recycling centre (£25).  Each ad had to be taken down off the site less than 5 minutes after I posted it because the phone wouldn't stop ringing.

So by the time this morning rolled around, the appearance of my garden had been utterly transformed.  The terrifying wilderness of the last 16 or 17 feet of the garden had been completely removed and a neat space, perfectly smooth and free of horrors, remained for the nice men of the garden room company to work their magic upon and hopefully by the weekend something not too dissimilar from this will be there instead:

Finally, we're offering a particularly fabulous treat over at Natural History this week - for the rest of this month, if you spend £100 (excluding shipping), you will get one of our beautiful Entomology notebooks for free!  I'd be thrilled if you could mention this offer in a tweet or even a blog post - please let me know if you do!

Back from...

...Chincoteague again!  For the last couple of weeks we have been visiting my husband's family in the US and joining them on their trip to Chincoteague in Virginia for a couple of sweltering weeks at the beach.  We had a wonderful time, as we always do there - swimming, cycling, night-time walks on the beach and... sitting in MacDonalds trying to get online.  That would be why you haven't heard from me in a shockingly long time - for the week before we left I was frantically trying to leave everything in the office in such a way that my assistant, Rachel and my intern, Suzie, wouldn't have to worry about anything in my absence - after all, I would be constantly available from Virginia, anyway, right? 

But no - the promised internet connection in the house was a figment of the agency's imagination and the only available connection was an agonisingly slow one in the nearest MacDonalds, God help us all, so I had about 15 minutes a day to get through work emails and just hope that friends would understand that I was out of radio contact.  Then in the week since I have been home I have been run off my feet making my house presentable for a set of photographs which were requested by a major Sunday newspaper for a potential feature on Natural History.

We were still in the US when they requested the pictures, so I had to put them off for a few days until I got back.  Then after a few hours of sleep, we spent the rest of our first day home tidying and clearing and decluttering, shoving all the junk into the kitchen & bathroom, leaving the rest of the house gloriously clear, even if getting in to the loo required ropes and crampons. 

Rachel duly took some wonderful pictures which were sent off, and very well received... with a delighted request for more! Of the bathroom!  And the kitchen!  ARGH!  So suddenly we had an afternoon to make the ENTIRE house tidy, but I have to admit that it was a much needed job and while I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to do it straight off a transatlantic flight, the place looks fab and I am determined to keep it looking so nice in future.  No more clutter!  

My current ambition is to keep the house in such a state that I can receive an email requesting a photo shoot in 30 minutes and I will casually finish my coffee, straighten a cushion and hand over the keys.

Photographs by Rachel Movitz, property of Natural History.

Concrete Ghosts

Last week I stumbled across this wonderful collaboration between Di Overton (of Ghost Furniture and Designer's Block) and the sculptor Kathy Dalwood - and evidently what a perfect pairing, because they came up with these stunning concrete tassels - utterly desirable and terribly chic (and just a little bit creepy).  I love them.

Buy them here.

Melting in the blissful sunshine

The weather here has been heavenly lately and I've been basking in the sunshine nearly every day - I have even bought not one, but TWO pairs of shorts, a garment that I have shunned since the age of about ten (unless you count the PVC hotpants that were a staple of my goth wardrobe in 1998).  The ones I got yesterday are fabulous brick red denim from Jack Wills, with which I got a very-unlike-me blue and white gingham shirt.  My husband informed me that the effect was a bit Hamptons, which, knowing his attitude to such places, might not entirely be a compliment (although he seems to like the shorts), but which was fine for me, given my deeply misguided ambitions to dress like Serena van der Woodsen.

 

I was briefly in Dublin this week, on a flying visit during which I demanded that my father bring me out for a steak for lunch.  I haven't had a good steak in a very long time and being a complete beef snob, and refusing to eat any but Irish (and possibly New Zealand) beef as I believe it to be the best in the world, I had to seize my chance in Dublin.  I was not disappointed.  We went to The Unicorn near Merrion Square, a fantastic place with a well-deserved repuation and tottered out many hours later having consumed a repast of antipasti (from their fantastic antipasti lunch buffet), a wonderful, wonderful fillet steak, pavlova with strawberries and a bottle of Barbera d'Alba.  

Coffee later on in the Powercourt Townhouse Centre, before dragging my father around some of my favourite shops (Delphi Antiques, A-Wear, Avoca and Brown Thomas) - a whirlwind tour which reminded me that Dublin is possibly the most stylish city in Europe and that Oxford is a never-ending sartorial disappointment.  Gloriously A-Wear is now in the UK - they should come to Oxford before H&M does and bring Patrick O'Brien with them.

I almost forgot!

In all the excitement of Natural History opening for business last week, I somehow completely forgot to tell *you*, the most important people of all, who have patiently been reading about all the changes in my life over the last couple of years and the various steps along the way that have led to the opening of my own shop!

So here it is - Natural History - www.origin-of-style.com - I hope you love it as much as I do and that you will tell your own readers, friends and family about it.

We're putting together the press pack today and this will be ready to go out on Wednesday or Thursday.  If you are a journalist or blogger and would like to be included on our press mailing list for a print or digital copy of the pack, please email me using the link to the left of this post and I will pass your details on to my PR agency, Rumour PR.  You can also sign up for our mailing list here.

Extravagant Inspirations

As I'm going to the beach in Virginia for a couple of weeks in late July, I have been planning my wardrobe.  Sadly, Chincoteague being a very low-key place, I cannot justify assembling a particularly glamorous selection of beachwear, but as I have absolutely nothing at all, I can still enjoy picking out a few things to wear and a few more to fantasise about.

After much agonising, I picked out this smart bikini from Figleaves.  Tempting as a Melissa Odabash ensemble might be, spending that much on something that will be worn for just two weeks was out of the question.  And, well, we're going on holiday with my in-laws, so anything overtly sexy was out, sadly.  It got a test drive last week in Bath and was fantastic - you can remove the string around the neck and have a bra-style halter instead, which I prefer.

However, the problem that has really been bothering me is the issue of a kaftan.  The difficulty is that the ones I love are a) wildly extravagant and b) wildly inappropriate for the sartorial norm of my holiday destination, but that doesn't stop me flipping through Polyvore for some of my favourites... 

su by Ssevilay featuring Halston dresses

Or this heavenly Matthew Williamson creation, available at Net-a-Porter:

But even while admitting that such a garment might be over the top on several levels, a plain black or white long kaftan in that sort of flowing style has proved to be undiscoverable. 

Have you come across anything of this nature that you love?

As I know that a lot of my readers are in Paris, I thought I would just mention this service that you, or someone you know, might find useful some day...

Feel like talking?  SOS Help, an English speaking crisis line in France, is open from 3 pm to 11 pm daily.  Call us up to talk about anything on your mind – from loneliness to stress to concerns about integrating into a new culture.  We are here to listen!  Call us at 01 46 21 46 46 or visit us online at www.soshelpline.org for more information.

The conclusion of my complete abandon (and a glorious weekend)

On Friday, we had been asked out for cocktails and tapas with friends to celebrate more end of exams.  I assumed that as we had had our fun for the day, we would decline, but John felt that as he had been out several times without me over the last couple of weeks, I should accept the invitation, so after getting home in good time to play with Beatrice and put her to bed myself, I headed out to the Duke of Cambridge cocktail bar on Little Clarendon Street for a couple of delicious Big Maks (Heaven Hill 4yr Bourbon and Chambord - French black raspberry liqueur - shaken with raspberry, lime and cranberry juice) with some friends.

After cocktails (where the atmosphere was somewhat marred by the huge screen playing the match!) we went a few doors down to Al Andalus, a Spanish restaurant with a fab reputation for tapas.  Now, tapas is an area of cuisine where being married to a vegetarian is less than ideal.  Apart from patatas bravas and Spanish omelette, vegetarian options are limited and of course the fun of tapas is in the sharing, so I was thrilled to be out not only sans le végétarien but with a group of eight people - we handed the menu to the girl who had finished her exams and let her order whatever struck her fancy (this included several bottles of Rioja!) and tucked in, sitting out in the restaurant's gorgeous, leafy garden in the sunset.  Completely fantastic.

The weekend was blissfully hot and somehow on both days we ended up taking a picnic to the Fellow's Garden in Magdalen College.  To get to this garden, you walk through St. John's Quad, through the beautiful, cool and shadowy Cloister (or Great Quad), past the New Building (bearing in mind that this is Oxford where New College was founded in 1379 - Magdalen's New Building is indeed relatively new, dating back only to 1733).  Finally you come out on the Cherwell and the Water Meadow for a heavenly walk along to the Fellow's Garden.  Few punters come this way, preferring the bustle of Christchurch Meadow, but if you do punt in Oxford and want a romantic escape, this is certainly the way to come.

Finally, we settled down in the garden, which is kept semi-wild, with baths and openings mowed into the long mixed grass.  In one large opening is the impressive "Y" sculpture by Mark Wallinger and it is near there that we could be found tucking in to our baguettes, tea and brownies on both afternoons while Beatrice explored the grass which came over her head and tried to touch the ducks that came over to help us with our bread.

What did you do this weekend?

1st image property of Passementerie, others with thanks to here and here.