Weekend supplement

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Good afternoon! Sorry this is late but it really couldn’t be helped. Let’s crack right on with it in a brisk and efficient manner - there’s loads to get through. But first, a word from our sponsors (me).

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Right: onwards. Here are some things I liked this week. Also Substack now has a highlighter function and if you’re reading on the web, I have made lavish use of it.

Thin summer trousers

I have been on a quest for thin trousers that I could wear in the heat and that didn’t have a dangly knottable tie at the front, because I don’t love those. My quest is now over, with these excellent thin trouser by a French brand called Tinsels. They are a thin summer trouser triumph. They are cotton poplin and airy, super comfortable, great shape, really well cut, wash like a dream (and dry in about 2 seconds). They come in olive green, that Jardin Majorelle blue that’s everywhere, and off-white.

I got mine from Collen & Clare in Southwold and there are another couple of UK or UK-friendly stockists (like here and here), or you can buy them directly from Tinsels here. In my experience anything under £130 sterling doesn’t incur import duty, but I may just have been lucky - it’s worth double checking, especially as I can’t now remember if I mean 130 pounds or 130 euros.

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But also, these are £34.90 from Uniqlo - I got them before the above ones because I wanted thin olive trousers. They’re great. Not as great, but not a million miles - and, crucially, also extremely thin and cool to wear. These come in olive, off-white, black, beige and navy. I love olive with a tan (and red flips).

This fantastic dress

Wiggy Kit clothes are an investment, but in my experience it is one that pays off because you re-meet them with absolute delight year after year. I love the tortoiseshell print on this and the very flattering cut - all you need is underwear and shoes and you’re ready to go to anything, anywhere, day or night.

Nightie dresses

As I was saying in my post earlier this week, all I wore during that crazy heatwave we just had was my two cotton nighties from If Only If, and for avoidance of doubt, they absolutely passes muster as dresses - you just look like you’re off to the market in Provence to buy things for lunch, and typing that has made me want delicious Cavaillon melon.

If you’re after a dress that gives nightie vibes but is actually a dress, I saw this one on Sarah Clark’s post earlier and was sorely tempted - as previously noted, I love dresses you can waft about the garden in all day and still wear out to dinner. I think all summer dresses should be like that. This one is so poetic.

Ella Risbridger’s cookbook

I am so, so delighted that this instantly became a Sunday Times bestseller. Also completely unsurprised. If you’re a free subscriber, I’ve kept the post unlocked for a bit longer - cooking aside (though it is a BRILLIANT cookbook, obviously), it’s worth reading this just for the Q&A. Although, make the salmon.

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Speaking of book extracts, I have THREE free ones coming up, each one a perfect summer read, so keep an eye out for that. (I read a ton of proofs to come up with these extracts and only approach the relevant publisher if I really love the book in question. Same with Me & My Desks - I wouldn’t ask to see the desk of someone whose work I didn’t admire, so you can take all those as hearty recommendations too).

How to go to a book event

How to go to a book event

Loved this from Melissa Harrison, whose new novel is utterly brilliant and in fact whose desk and writing process you can read about here.

I went to see her being interviewed at a local bookshop last week and she is such a fantastically articulate, thought-provoking and properly intelligent speaker - I really recommend you catch her if she’s appearing near you (her various dates and locations are at the bottom of her post above). ANYWAY - this is a very funny and very true post about audience members at book events from the point of view of the author.

These jute bags

This is this one

Maison Bengal make jute and macramé bags for every smart lifestyle brand I could mention. I like buying directly from them, not only because it’s cheaper but because they’re a social enterprise and more of your money goes to the women who actually weave them in Bangladesh. Note: I love a basket bag as much as the next person, but jute is soft, meaning it doesn’t scratch your bare arms or legs if you’re not wearing many clothes.

This absolute beauty is £30 (many colourways)

This is this one (it’s biiiiig)

This one is gigantic and incredibly useful if you’re spending the day at the beach and have tons of kit (or if you’re decanting a massive supermarket home delivery that doesn’t come with bags, or if the room’s a mess and you need to shove all the crap into something very quickly). And look at this one!

I’m just showing you a few of my personal faves (along with this macramé one) - there are a whole heap of different shapes, in tons of different colours, including brighter ones, and loads of different sizes. Also jute is really tough and resilient - I’ve had my Maison Bengal bags for years and years, which in a way is quite annoying because my love for them is strong.

One more

This little plate

A friend sent me a link to this saying ‘oh my God, it’s you as a plate!’. And it is. (This one, too).

This dress

I posted this dress in black last year, but look at it in this buttery yellow! DIVINE. I would wear it to the event I tried to wriggle out of attending.

These pillowcases

Do I need pillowcases? Absolutely not. Do I drool with longing at these? Absolutely yes. They’re here (they also have napkins and tablecloths, waah).

New favourite body brand alert

I’ve written a review of this exceptionally good body lotion for my Sunday Times column (possibly in today, otherwise next week), so I won’t repeat myself. I liked it so much that I got curious about the brand and called in other bits.

This one is fantastic if you have dry, rough, even scaly bits. It’s the urea, which essentially eats them all up. Unlovely thought, but lovely results - it gives you such nice skin. Don’t get this if you’re not ROUGH - get the yellow one I linked to above.

I really rate everything I’ve tried from this brand (haven’t got to face products yet), including the very effective body washes - the multi-oil one gives you gleaming skin and the salicylic acid one will sort out any congestion(eventually! Sometimes people expect miracles overnight but in 95% of cases you have to keep at it for a couple of weeks on the body and at least four weeks on the face).

Also, the prices are reasonable and the bottles are huge.

Helena Bonham Carter at 60

Could not love this more - or her, or for that matter him.

This pub in Notting Hill

I’m so looking forward to going here in the week - you could not ask for better food/restaurant/hospitality pedigree.

This post from Lucy Deedes

A Life in the Slow Lane

Any post from Lucy Deedes, to be honest, but this one is sublime.

This post about the French and air

On The French Relationship With Air

My paternal grandmother used to stand very still outside on a hot day and say, with an almost beatific expression, ‘Il n’y a pas un souffle de vent’ - there isn’t a breath of wind. At the time everybody teased her for it, because she’d trot out the phrase like clockwork the moment the mercury went above 30 degrees, but now I say it to myself too and then have a nice four seconds remembering her.

Big art

So You Need Big Art

The excellent Talia with non-obvious, non-naff ideas for populating big walls.

In brief

• Do we all know that the great Lucy Mangan is now on Substack?

• Barbara Pym

• Detectives by geographical location

• In praise of the middlebrow novel

• ‘There is a difference between recognising what has happened to us and building our identity around it’. So, so good from Philippa Perry

• I’ve read Dinner: A Love Story since forever, and I have every faith in this vegetarian bolognese recipe

• Siena Miller talks to Bay Garnett about style

• On working-class food guilt

• GLP-1 drugs MAY reduce the risk of cancer progression (NB this has not been peer-reviewed)

• Americans are treating Europe like a security exercise

• What women are actually using Claude for

• The Cannes film festival

• Cold infusions, yes please

• If you’re in the US: how to shop in Europe for antiques and get them home

• I literally think this 15 times a day

• A note from Istanbul

  

Thank you for reading! I am now off to order five chickens, because some of our ladies are old now and don’t lay anymore. Have a lovely weekend, please tell me what you’re up to, please leave this post a ❤️ if you liked it (thank you), and I’ll be back in the week with the first of a series of STONKING summer reading book extracts.

PS If you’re at the book fest in Hay on Wye this weekend, do go and have a look at Eleanor Crow’s paintings - they’re at The Table.

More posts from me this week:

There are all sorts of very nice things in my shop - lovingly curated clothes, accessories, home things, a ton of stuff I can’t fit in this newsletter. Everything in there is either something I already own or something I deeply covet. Some links are affiliate, meaning I get a minuscule kickback from the brand at zero cost to you.