Weekend supplement

free edition!

Everything linked below except the dear pigeon, who is a Jellycat

Good morning! It is possible that the heating and hot water will come back on tonight. It’s been five days, which unfortunately have coincided with the return of bastarding wintry weather. I don’t mind the cold that much now I’ve got used to indoor beanies + furry coat, and it is actively lovely to be in bed under piles of blankets and quilts (though piercing agony to then leave the bed), but not having baths sends me into a steep decline.

I had to be in London earlier in the week, for among other things a Design Week event, with Emma Ainscough, Jojo Barr from House Nine, and Katrina Burroughs, who is Interiors Editor at The Sunday Times. The event was sold out and afterwards my book sold out too, so thank you very much if you came along, and hello and welcome if you’ve subscribed as a result.

Anyway - I’d booked myself into a luxey hotel (allegedly - my idea of hotel luxe really isn’t other people’s, I keep discovering), thinking that the splurge was worth it because I would have at least two magnificent, epic baths, really deep, with a pot of tea and room service perched on the edge, and loads of bubbles and my book. When I eventually got there, really late due to missing the train and then chronic traffic, the room only had a shower. By this point I was on the verge of being late for dinner and didn’t have the energy to ask to move.

But tonight’s the night! Actually I shouldn’t even say that, in case I jinx it. I long for hot water.

An ancient picture of a bath at the Portobello Hotel. Mind you, there’s one very like it at Batty Langley’s

Pigeons

In London I had supper with my younger son and his partner. She had the previous week rescued a pigeon that some kids had kicked (I feel murderous typing that) and that was hobbling about unable to fly. I have spent a lifetime really hating London pigeons, but the story of this pigeon made me reconsider.

She took the pigeon home and they made it a sort of nest in their bath, fed and watered it, and went online for advice. It turns out there is a whole network of people in London who help pigeons, rescue pigeons, house pigeons (for life if necessary), give pigeons medicine, etc etc, and they immediately leapt into action. This made me love humanity. Also the reason the pigeon was in a box rather than e.g. her handbag was that two teenagers who had something to do with a church had witness the kicking but were scared to intervene. When they saw the rescue they sweetly ran back into the church to get a container and something to cover the pigeon with to keep it warm.

In the process of researching what you do with an injured pigeon, my son discovered that the reason city pigeons’ feet are so manky - one of the many reasons for my former dislike/disgust - is something called string foot. Basically people shed hair all the time, and the hair on pavements ties itself around the pigeon’s feet, winds itself tighter and tighter, cuts off circulation and cripples them, because obviously they (the pigeons) don’t have the dexterity to get it off. Isn’t that so sad? From war heroes to crippled by human hair from the heads of people who are then repulsed by the feet.

BUT! There are also groups that specifically help pigeons with string foot. I mean, I wouldn’t want to join one, one knows one’s limits, but this sort of thing gives me hope and makes me feel such gratitude that pigeon helpers exist. The person who eventually took in this particular pigeon was not, as I immediately assumed, an ancient old man in a vest but a young woman who lived in London Fields. God bless the pigeon helpers.

A pigeon I met at lunchtime the next day. I did not shoo it (much)

I came home on Thursday evening and we almost immediately had quite a long power cut. We have an oil-fired Aga (and thank goodness no immediate need to top it up), meaning you can still cook and make cups of tea. I love a power cut, they’re so romantic and ancient-feeling, provided you have loads of candles to hand, which I do. Tails, who is a Norfolk terrier and fossicks about outside in the pitch blackness for hours, really hates power cuts, and went wherever the pools of light from the candles and torch were, doing small anxious yips. Lupin didn’t care at all.

I made carbonara and it tasted extra-nice because of the dark

Normally I moan about the light from rechargeable lamps being too white, but it came in very handy. This one’s from Pooky

Here are some things I liked this week.

these vernal green dots are premature but OPTIMISTIC

I write these round-up posts for paid subscribers once a week, and for free subscribers once a month. This is a free post. The rest are all here. All posts auto-paywall after 4 weeks. Other currently free things you might have missed recently: this excellent extract from a hilarious/heartbreaking new novel I love; Lucinda Chambers’s shopping picks for March; and another free extract, this one from Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir. There are so many good books coming out at the moment across all genres - more extracts to come. Next week we have free CHICKEN RECIPES.

This exhibition in Ghent

Self-portrait by Louise-Hollandine van de Palts, c.1650-1655

It’s called Unforgettable: Women Artists From Antwerp To Amsterdam, 1600-1750 and I am actually going to get off my arse and go. It’s on until the 31st May and it looks fantastic.

If you’re similarly inspired and need somewhere nice to stay in Ghent, I like here and here. If you’re making a weekend of it, don’t miss the weekly (Fri, Sat, Sun, from early until about lunchtime) flea market, and get there early to beat the dealers. I’ve bought some of my favourite possessions there, including old paintings. Also obviously don’t miss Van Eyck’s ravishing Ghent Altarpiece. Don’t miss any of it, in fact. I really love Ghent. It’s less hellishly touristy than Bruges (which is 20 mins away by train) and because it’s a student town it’s buzzy and alive and feels un-museumlike, despite being in fact very ancient and museumy. Also, quite hard to eat badly.

‘I don’t crave anything new at the moment; I really very strongly want what I have’

Talismans

I loved this by Louise.

Rabbits

I also really very strongly want what I have, but also perhaps some Easter decorations from Arket.

Or maybe this sheep, who is called Little Bo Sheep.

Mrs Pearcey

This is what I’m reading and will be returning to the moment I post this. I love Lottie Moggach’s writing. Her latest novel is a reimagining of a scandalous real-life Victorian crime, and so far it’s unputdownable. You can buy it here, and listen to Lottie talking about it below.

Miracle Balm in this exact shade

It’s a new one called Dusty Rose and it is beautiful. Some people get on with Miracle Balm - it’s kind of like tinted Vaseline - and some people don’t. I find it invaluable for adding a bit of flush and gleam wherever you’d like it. For me that’s cheeks, the high part of the forehead and sometimes lips. It’s so, so easy to apply (NB you have to break the seal - get your nail in there to pierce the surface, don’t just dab your finger over it or nothing will happen). It’s very hard to mess up and the amount of flush and gleam is just right. But this specific colour! I can’t recommend it enough, unless obviously you’re too dark for it, in which case have a look at Sunkissed. It comes in a mini size, which is perfect because a little goes a long way.

This list of what Elissa Altman knows at 60

what I know

Outstanding, though she’s wrong on 27 (but so right on 57. And on every other number, come to that).

This eye palette

And Bay Garnett is so right about this being the best palette. I wrote about it in my beauty column last year, here.

‘I don’t possess this house. This house possesses me’

I don't possess this house. This house possesses me.

This extreme funniness

People I Worry Aren't Enjoying the Garden of Earthly Delights as Much as They Expected.

I don’t pay-subscribe to John Finnimore yet, but I’m about to remedy that. God, so many paid subscriptions, it’s getting really unmanageable. I’m going to have to do some light pruning, I fear, for a few months, and then prune group B and go back to group A, sort of on rotation. Anyway - even just the free part of this post so, so properly funny. The jerboa!

For lunch

A green salad and Fergus Henderson’s unimprovable recipe for Welsh rarebit. It’s also in this week’s issue of Country Life, where it says the mixture keeps for two weeks in the fridge. DANGEROUS KNOWLEDGE.

Quite a special supper (if you eat meat)

Romulo Yanes for The New York Times

Blue cheese steak and endive salad for two, gift link. Hearty but elegant. Note: Colu Henry writes brilliant, sophisticated but completely doable recipes, many of them actively easy, and has a new book out next week (in the UK). I haven’t read the book yet but I’d be surprised if it weren’t great. Her previous one is a favourite of mine.

In brief:

• Liza Tarbuck’s Radio 2 show has ended. She snuck out without saying. It is a national catastrophe and I can’t bear it. Patricia Nicols understands why perfectly

• (This is how she did it)

• I want to read this book

• James Marriott’s Radio 4 series, How Reading Made Us, is predictably excellent

• Hockney’s Normandy pictures at the Serpentine

• Love this

• And this!

• An extract from Alan Bennett’s diary of his 90th year

• Laetitia made me order whey protein

• Important: kākāpō livestream

• A daily multivitamin could help slow ageing - I mean, who knows, but I feel like you might as well

• (I like this one)

• Pooing

• You are not in your Carolyn era

• You know how I bang on about the genius of the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz? Here’s an extraordinary long read about him and Love’s Labo(u)r, gift link

• And here’s the extract I ran from Love’s Labour last year - I’ve made it free

• Andrew O’Hagan on the former Duke and Duchess of York. Brace!

• Raffaella Barker on cookbooks

• Emma Gannon on being ordinary

• Women making money isn't a scandal, but our reaction to it might be

• Nice reading list

• I heard this exquisitely beautiful song on Jessie Buckley’s Desert Island Discs and it made all the hairs on my arms stand up

Have a really wonderful weekend! Do please really kindly leave this post a ❤️ if you liked it, thank you, and I’ll be back in the week. Coming up for paid subscribers: the clothes I’m buying for spring (this will appear if and when the weather does what it’s supposed to do, which is NOT TODAY); a few really good things I’ve bought for the new house; paint colours; and a thought about ‘prudishness’. Before that we have personally-tested (meaning I’ve cooked each one more than once) chicken recipes, on Monday. When I will be warm and clean.

PS these are insane, if like me you can’t resist a maraschino cherry. Or marzipan.