After this week, I’m taking a break of The Offcuts for the next four weeks. I’ve toyed with trying to make it work, but I think it’ll be too much pressure. I go to Glastonbury on Wednesday, the following weekend I’m in Berlin, and then twenty-four hours after touching back down in London town, I’m off again to Colombia for two and a half weeks. I don’t want to commit to pulling this newsletter together if it might stop me from enjoying all the fun things I have planned because of worrying over finding the time for writing. Your next instalment of dribs, drabs and whisps will be at the end of July.
Last week I read Foster by Claire Keegan. She is one of my favourite authors. I love the way she articulates the fragments of human existence, particularly through nuances of relationships in all different shapes and forms. The slow pace of life in her storylines and plots gives my brain respite and lets me mop up every detail of her writing.
Other links:
Tiny love stories
The best style at LIDO festival
Allison Williams on Girls, nepo babies and toxic momfluencers
Is it true that I don’t get angry or am I just suppressing it?
Colombia planning has hardly had a look in. Almost entirely winging it with this one, but sometimes I think it can be better to go without expectation and a smaller (non-existent) list of to-dos. The foundations of the trip have been laid (mostly), and a bedroom has been booked for my arrival. Trusting that everything else will somehow fall into place.
When I was a baby, Winnie the Pooh was the theme chosen for me. My entire bedroom was like a shrine to that Willy nilly silly old bear - curtains, a wallpaper border, toys, books, the lot. I came across a video on Instagram of Winnie the Pooh’s voice actor, Jim Cummings, soothing his grandson with his very best Pooh. The comments mirrored my feelings of warmth, nostalgia, and comfort.
Glastonbury admin has taken over my life in the last two weeks, but pulling together outfits and accessories has been so much fun. It’s an opportunity to really go all out with fashion choices that are fun and more extravagant. I have Smirnoff Ice earrings, a giant fluffy hat, and sunglasses I bought on Vinted labelled as “Party Raver Cyclops Space Punk Gothic” - and that’s the tip of the iceberg.
I hate to be that British person, but I am going to moan about the weather. Anything above 25℃ in the UK is unbearable. To the point that one night last week, I woke up at 6 a.m. with a migraine like no other, owing to the intense heat and likely some severe dehydration. My head felt like Kerplunk, if all the little sticks were actually needles poking into my brain. I threw up and then slept until noon, nearly missing my Sisters’ birthday lunch. Grateful for today’s high of 23°.
It was the summer solstice on Saturday, the longest day of the year, when in the northern hemisphere, light stretches to its very limit. One year, I would love to make it to Stonehenge and be among others waiting for the sun to rise up over the horizon. We are in the thick of summer now. This week, I’ve taken inspiration from the final stanza of Summer Solstice by Rose Styron.
No one calls early—they
remember your late hours.
The shades are down, so
sunlight’s held at bay
though not the fabulous winged
song of summer birds
waking me as ever, always in our
favorite room, our season.
Yesterday’s mail on the desk
newspaper, unread. Plans for the day
hover bright out all our doors—
Don’t think of evening.
