Weekend supplement
cosiness special
Good morning! Do you have the ‘hooray, life’s back to normal’ feeling? I don’t. I’m not remotely in the mood to emerge from my lair, snap to attention, declutter, organise anything or make plans. The tree is staying up until Monday, the kitchen fairy lights are inevitably being promoted to permanent fixture, and I’m longing for the snow that’s been forecast for today. January and February are for enjoying feeling like a bear, if bears made soup (wearing aprons but nothing else. I enjoy the way illustrators dress animals, e.g. no underpants but a snazzy waistcoat).
The boxes still aren’t all unpacked. The issue now - apart from bear-like indolence - is that it’s too cold to spend much time going through them in the barn for any proper length of time. I go in full of good intentions, bundled up in my fur coat, gloves and grippy Uggs (so toasty, currently in the sale). But then I am unwieldy and un-nimble because of the huge coat and gloves, and then I get too hot unstacking the boxes, and then I get too cold again once they’re down, and then I get grumpy.
Also I have made myself the box martyr, for reasons of alleged control freakery, except the so-called freakery is in fact completely sensible: I don’t want any more boxes inside the house sitting there like lumps - reproachful lumps - and taking up space, so I have to go through them outside because nobody else knows what I do and don’t want to bring in. I might have to revise my approach.
Here are some things I’ve enjoyed this week. The main things I enjoyed were family and Christmas and eating and chatting, and then little bits of decorating the new house. Here I feel obliged to say that if you’re thinking - I always do after Epiphany - ‘it looks so bare in here without the tree and the decorations, I need to re-jig things a bit,’ I have just the book for you.
Actually, on that general topic, please tell me your thoughts about dining rooms in the comments. I’ve never had one before and always thought they were pointless unless you led quite a formal existence, but now I do have one and I’m not sure what to do. It’s lovely in there, cosy and atmospheric - enormous inglenook fireplace - but on the other hand the kitchen table is my spiritual home and I like eating at it, plus it’s big enough for having people to dinner.
What do I do? Keep the dining room as it is? Turn it into another sitting room, maybe with a tv in it? But then I’d lose the dining table, which I really like for jigsaws and board games and extra work space. And I might grow into the idea of dinner in Not The Kitchen, away from mess and washing up. (Isn’t it funny how some things still feel too adult for you even when you are really quite ancient? A friend was describing someone’s house the other day and made a comical face as she said ‘very grown-up’. I knew exactly what she meant but I wonder if the very grown-up people come to one’s house and think ‘my God, she lives like a child’).
Or do I keep it as a dining room but make it multi-purpose, e.g. line it with books and pretend it’s a library too? Any thoughts extremely welcome. I don’t want it to become the least used room in the house - but then again, one room has to be, I suppose. I keep going round and round about it in my head.
Right, here are the things.
Substack newspapers
You put in the address of the newsletter you want and get a printable pdf! Like this:
These socks
These have a padded sole, so you can potter about in them as though they were slippers. It’s not so padded that it won’t fit into a boot, though. Height of cosiness. Also available in long, which are perfect for wellies. Various colours.
Louise on cocooning
I could not have loved this more.
Triangle scarves
A practical point rather than a fashion one. I have this divinely soft one, but they’re available at every price and my point applies to all and any of them. They are just so good, because obviously they are a scarf, hooray, but the second your ears get cold they become a generous, super-warm headscarf, better than any hat. Quite babushka in the bread queue, at least on me, but I like that. If it’s even colder than that you can tie them snugly at the back, so they’re more like a hood or balaclava/cagoule.
Or if you’ve had the foresight to wear a beanie, you can spin them around and wear them as a bandana, tied at the back, with loads of wool/cashmere round your neck. And if it’s not that cold you can wear them more loosely, tied at the front, more like an accessory to your outfit, chic but still notably warm. So versatile! Also, being dressed sensibly for properly bleak weather often looks very dull, and these perk things up a bit. I really love triangle scarves. If you’re in the market for one, make sure it’s a decent size to get the benefit.
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