I feel a little disorientated after this week - made clear by the fact it’s Tuesday, not Monday, and now, after the bank holiday weekend, I’ll be debating with myself what day of the week it actually is. How exciting.
I’m yet to swim in the lido this year, and now, as each week of April passes, I wonder if this will be the week. Last year, I braved the (heated) outdoor pool in February, and I have spent the last few months boggling at how I ever managed. Maybe this will be the week, but I’m not hopeful. Outdoor activity for this week has technically already been assigned, and it’s queuing for the Miista sample sale.
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane has been a slow burn for me, which is strange. I’m not sure if I often encounter that with a book, at least in the sense that I do a complete 180 from fearing regret to itching to read. I enjoyed how the plot was shaped by the choices we make, leaving room in the margins for us to wonder what if. Relieved to say it didn’t devastate me as I had predicted it might last week. I picked up Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano as my next read (all rhythm of flicking between a fiction then non-fiction has currently gone out the window). There are some striking similarities between the two. It’s interesting when that happens, because now undoubtedly my reading of Ask Again, Yes will inform my reading and experience of Hello Beautiful in ways it might not have done.
Other links:
A spellbinding Cotswold garden
Anna Delvey on making the best out of bad situations
Pioneering ‘friendship benches’
A look at the House of Sunny’s Airbnb
The artists fighting back against the AI-generated action figure trend
Doctors stole one woman’s eggs to get another patient pregnant
My love for pastries is unwavering, and Pophams have a new seasonal pastry. I practically drooled over my screen. I have mentally scheduled myself in for a tasting on Saturday.
For Easter when we were younger, my grandma was the one to organise the Easter egg hunt. It was all very fair and even. The exact same number of little eggs were wrapped in napkins of different patterns and colours, with one type of napkin assigned to one grandchild so that there could be no arguments on who got more chocolate. One year, our granddad hid the eggs in the garden, forgotten where he’d put half of them, and some were ravaged by squirrels by the time we found them. We stuck to hunting inside after that.
There’s another Lynx Cherry Spritz advert. It didn’t catch me quite as off guard as the first. The concept is the same. It’s weird and it’s silly. I can only find a video of the Spanish version if you’re dying to see it.
Katy Perry went to space, if you didn’t know. To think the idea that a privately (billionaire) funded all-female trip hoped to have the intention of inspiring other women to me is no different than when Bic bought out those pink biros ‘For Her’. Utterly futile. As the real female astronauts at NASA are grappling with Trump’s DEI rampage, the whole stunt has received little else other than backlash. Linking some hot takes below:
The utter defeat of American feminism
Commercial space travel is inevitable
Katy Perry’s regret
Activist Amanda Nguyen was the first American-Vietnamese woman in space
The visit to Chapel Down vineyard was a successful one, and their sparkling wine tastes like strawberries, if you were wondering. We decided to sandwich it between a 2-night stay in Tenterden, a quaint little town affectionately celebrated as ‘Jewel of the Weald’. It was so lovely to get out of London. We went for a gorgeous walk through a forest filled with wild garlic. We saw reams of bluebells and passed by a field filled with buttery yellow dandelions. It was truly magical. I also got quite obsessed with using the Merlin app to identify all the different bird songs around us. We were even visited multiple times by a huge heron.
The Garden That I Love by Alfred Austin encapsulates appreciation for the nature and landscapes of Kent, inspired by the garden of Swinford Old Manor, near Ashford in Kent. I read a little and resonated with something he said about the impact of the seasons on the perception of nature’s beauty. It reminded me of what I’ve been saying about forgetting each year just how much awe spring brings with the burgeoning of blossom on brighter days.
“Have we not all of us seen, a hundred times, the loveliest view, the best horse, the most beautiful woman, in the world? There is no call to be exact and consistent in our admirations; and I again declare that I have never seen the garden looking anything like so fair as at this hour.”
Yes to that pophams croissant. I had the rhubarb version for dessert last week and it was SUBLIME