India..I just have to tell you that 'Baboushka in the bread queue ' and ' someone shat in the punch' have become stock phrases in my home!! Hilarious 🤣
Enjoyed this thanks. Loved Tim Walker s cottage. Beautiful. And I bought myself a magnetic shopping list for the fridge too, coz no one buys me things like that and I needed a new one.
The M&S x Bella Freud dog sweater is in the sale now for only £7.50. I bought one just in case I get a puppy this year.
An omnibus behind on the Archers but up to date with the Traitors. I feel like I watch more for the landscape and Claudia’s styling than the actual game now though.
Bibliomania - possibly one of my favourite ever links on your post India - thank you🙏 - off to share with a few of my fellow addicts or is it manics? Who cares? It’s about books…
If you’re looking to replace the fitted carpets in your bathrooms I’d go with thick Persian Gabbeh rugs which have a deep enough pile to have the feeling of sinking your toes in warm sand after emerging from the shower or stepping out of the bath. They come in all colours and sizes and you can place them well away from the lavatory so you solve the peeing problem
Great supplement as ever & agree with doing fewer clothes but better clothes. Get huge satisfaction further down the road when ‘cost per wear’ renders the purchase a bargain.
Dear India, I absolutely love your writing but it’s YOUR writing I want! More of your voice would be lovely; it’s the best part of your posts. It’s great hearing about what you rate and I have bought more than a few things on your recommendations, especially books and homeware, but I loved it earlier on in your substack life when you’d sometimes write a longer-form piece about a specific thing. I understand that when you’re producing content week after week it’s good to have a formula to follow, but perhaps you could occasionally intersperse the odd longer article in your inimitable style?
I started rereading the Cazalet Chronicles feeling very reduced with a horrid chest infection over Christmas and in need of a 'warm bath' book. Have just got onto the 4th one and ignoring lots of other goodies I have to read, including my book club book (The Red Tent) which I now have 36 hours to read but can't bear to leave the Cazalets even though I can remember more or less what happens. Having not read them for some years I am struck by how wonderfully Elizabeth Jane Howard writes about women, mothers, love, families and society before, during and after WWII - don't think I appreciated her brilliance before!
Unbelievable that for you, of all people, the lampshades are still missing. I fantasised that for Christmas you flung silk scarves over the lamps, but without the wire frames I suppose that would be a fire hazard.
Re Fiona on the Traitors: I've been having a crisis of confidence, or at least some kind of crisis. At first she seemed a type, as you say, and I had no strong feelings pro or con. As soon as she was revealed to be the secret traitor, and started talking direct to the viewing public, I started to dislike her slightly flirtatious nastiness - it seemed to me quite different in type to the funny glee which previous traitors have described about murdering. When she started the whole Rachel lying thing, I thought it was extraordinary, inadvisably confrontational (understatement!), and narcissistic (i.e."if Amanda was going to tell anybody she would have told me"), with more performative machiavellianism straight to the viewer. But then I watched Traitors Uncloaked after she was banished, on which she claimed never to have actually believed that Rachel was lying! It made me REALLY dislike her, and I am still trying to understand exactly why. Maybe it triggered something from my past, but I started thinking "this woman is a sociopath". Perhaps I am going mad, and have somehow forgotten that this really is just a game? Opinions welcome!
Miners makeup! Free on the cover of Mizz or Just Seventeen…took me straight back to getting ready for parties in the late 80s/early 90s - thank you! Twilight Teaser lipstick, anyone?
Oh my gosh… new Cazalet???! I don’t think I can wait till September. That doesn’t work with my annual comfort-Cazalet-reread-in-the-cold months schedule. How incredibly exciting. I bet Rupert’s French baby makes an appearance.
India, you absolute gem! Thank you so much for including my piece on Twelfth Night, so appreciated. Your kitchen is spectacular, and already looking so warm and lived in — like home. xx ps — and I ADORE Christene Barberich!
As I get older I find the ergonomics of houses increasingly important...lifting, stretching, slipping, tripping. My ability to carry heavy pots across a kitchen or tolerate freezing bathroom floors now, seem inversely proportional to my dog wrestling, bramble pulling and wheelbarrow trundling strengths.
So bathroom carpets (clean new ones)are heavenly. And kitchen work triangles are fascinating. Inheriting someone else's 30 year old kitchen /scullery work triangle can be enlightening. In good and bad ways. I like lots of space to put hot pans round a cooker as I'm a messy (dangerous) cook, others can decant things more daintily. Everyone deserves their own way of organising a kitchen but the wisdom of those who have gone before (or possibly their despair if they hated housework) stays in the bones of a house.
My favourite pantries all have a little window which would have had fly mesh. All the Edwardian semis in this street had them, sadly knocked through into bigger kitchens now or replaced I suppose quite appropriately with fridges (but fridges didn't need little windows..)
I followed your advice and ordered the Transylvanian Trilogy just before Christmas (too far to jaunt to Aldeburgh but another beloved Suffolk independent Dial Lane Books in Ipswich, which is a joy) and l just finished “They Were Counted”. Bloody brilliant, if anyone else is looking for a “curl up in the sofa” tome for January. It’s utterly evocative. I was concerned it would be too long, too complex and somehow vaguely Chekovy (albeit it isn’t Russian … I fear anything that may be Chekovy). But no. It’s got that wonderful expansive family saga, “could almost qualify as chick-lit if it wasn’t far too beautiful” sort of quality about it. And I’m actively looking forward to volume 2.
India..I just have to tell you that 'Baboushka in the bread queue ' and ' someone shat in the punch' have become stock phrases in my home!! Hilarious 🤣
Enjoyed this thanks. Loved Tim Walker s cottage. Beautiful. And I bought myself a magnetic shopping list for the fridge too, coz no one buys me things like that and I needed a new one.
The M&S x Bella Freud dog sweater is in the sale now for only £7.50. I bought one just in case I get a puppy this year.
An omnibus behind on the Archers but up to date with the Traitors. I feel like I watch more for the landscape and Claudia’s styling than the actual game now though.
Bibliomania - possibly one of my favourite ever links on your post India - thank you🙏 - off to share with a few of my fellow addicts or is it manics? Who cares? It’s about books…
If you’re looking to replace the fitted carpets in your bathrooms I’d go with thick Persian Gabbeh rugs which have a deep enough pile to have the feeling of sinking your toes in warm sand after emerging from the shower or stepping out of the bath. They come in all colours and sizes and you can place them well away from the lavatory so you solve the peeing problem
Whoops! I pressed post too soon but you’ll get the gist.
Great supplement as ever & agree with doing fewer clothes but better clothes. Get huge satisfaction further down the road when ‘cost per wear’ renders the purchase a bargain.
Dear India, I absolutely love your writing but it’s YOUR writing I want! More of your voice would be lovely; it’s the best part of your posts. It’s great hearing about what you rate and I have bought more than a few things on your recommendations, especially books and homeware, but I loved it earlier on in your substack life when you’d sometimes write a longer-form piece about a specific thing. I understand that when you’re producing content week after week it’s good to have a formula to follow, but perhaps you could occasionally intersperse the odd longer article in your inimitable style?
I started rereading the Cazalet Chronicles feeling very reduced with a horrid chest infection over Christmas and in need of a 'warm bath' book. Have just got onto the 4th one and ignoring lots of other goodies I have to read, including my book club book (The Red Tent) which I now have 36 hours to read but can't bear to leave the Cazalets even though I can remember more or less what happens. Having not read them for some years I am struck by how wonderfully Elizabeth Jane Howard writes about women, mothers, love, families and society before, during and after WWII - don't think I appreciated her brilliance before!
Warning for anybody who has yet to watch Traitors: mine below is full of spoilers!
Unbelievable that for you, of all people, the lampshades are still missing. I fantasised that for Christmas you flung silk scarves over the lamps, but without the wire frames I suppose that would be a fire hazard.
Re Fiona on the Traitors: I've been having a crisis of confidence, or at least some kind of crisis. At first she seemed a type, as you say, and I had no strong feelings pro or con. As soon as she was revealed to be the secret traitor, and started talking direct to the viewing public, I started to dislike her slightly flirtatious nastiness - it seemed to me quite different in type to the funny glee which previous traitors have described about murdering. When she started the whole Rachel lying thing, I thought it was extraordinary, inadvisably confrontational (understatement!), and narcissistic (i.e."if Amanda was going to tell anybody she would have told me"), with more performative machiavellianism straight to the viewer. But then I watched Traitors Uncloaked after she was banished, on which she claimed never to have actually believed that Rachel was lying! It made me REALLY dislike her, and I am still trying to understand exactly why. Maybe it triggered something from my past, but I started thinking "this woman is a sociopath". Perhaps I am going mad, and have somehow forgotten that this really is just a game? Opinions welcome!
Miners makeup! Free on the cover of Mizz or Just Seventeen…took me straight back to getting ready for parties in the late 80s/early 90s - thank you! Twilight Teaser lipstick, anyone?
Oh my gosh… new Cazalet???! I don’t think I can wait till September. That doesn’t work with my annual comfort-Cazalet-reread-in-the-cold months schedule. How incredibly exciting. I bet Rupert’s French baby makes an appearance.
Love the Wyndham and Banerjee books SO MUCH. Historical fiction at its absolute best.
India, you absolute gem! Thank you so much for including my piece on Twelfth Night, so appreciated. Your kitchen is spectacular, and already looking so warm and lived in — like home. xx ps — and I ADORE Christene Barberich!
As I get older I find the ergonomics of houses increasingly important...lifting, stretching, slipping, tripping. My ability to carry heavy pots across a kitchen or tolerate freezing bathroom floors now, seem inversely proportional to my dog wrestling, bramble pulling and wheelbarrow trundling strengths.
So bathroom carpets (clean new ones)are heavenly. And kitchen work triangles are fascinating. Inheriting someone else's 30 year old kitchen /scullery work triangle can be enlightening. In good and bad ways. I like lots of space to put hot pans round a cooker as I'm a messy (dangerous) cook, others can decant things more daintily. Everyone deserves their own way of organising a kitchen but the wisdom of those who have gone before (or possibly their despair if they hated housework) stays in the bones of a house.
My favourite pantries all have a little window which would have had fly mesh. All the Edwardian semis in this street had them, sadly knocked through into bigger kitchens now or replaced I suppose quite appropriately with fridges (but fridges didn't need little windows..)
I followed your advice and ordered the Transylvanian Trilogy just before Christmas (too far to jaunt to Aldeburgh but another beloved Suffolk independent Dial Lane Books in Ipswich, which is a joy) and l just finished “They Were Counted”. Bloody brilliant, if anyone else is looking for a “curl up in the sofa” tome for January. It’s utterly evocative. I was concerned it would be too long, too complex and somehow vaguely Chekovy (albeit it isn’t Russian … I fear anything that may be Chekovy). But no. It’s got that wonderful expansive family saga, “could almost qualify as chick-lit if it wasn’t far too beautiful” sort of quality about it. And I’m actively looking forward to volume 2.