I promised myself that I’d post something celebratory in this grey month. My Christmas presents for 2016 seemed a good place to start. Essentially, things that will last forever, pared down and beautiful, and keeping to the tradition of a few chosen categories … clothes, unguents, a single cooking utensil, something to do with yoga, and of course, books. Thus, as pictured, a Cocon Commerz Privatsachen dress (the ethos of the company written about beautifully here), a Dunhill sweater (an extremely lucky unworn ebay find), oodles of organic perfume, an Eric Ravilious calendar, lunch at the River Café (for the greyest of January days), a brush for face powder (of which I can count its use throughout the year on the fingers of one hand, but this brush might make me rethink), liquid Vitamin D (knowing the lack of sun to come in the next few months), a new Microplane to add to my collection and some of my favourite chocolate (but that has disappeared from the shot!).
Last, but definitely not least, the books... I’m often overwhelmed when I walk into bookshops and see piles of modern books stacked up. They seem to come out in a never-ending unthinking churn of production. Perhaps due to this, it’s easy to spot the ‘special ones’, the ones where it’s clear much love and labour has been devoted to the final product. Amongst those in the pile, I can’t recommend highly enough a new yoga book on the legacy of Vanda Scaravelli, Ducksoup’s cookbook, Rococo’s book on chocolate, and Luciano Giubbilei’s sumptuous gardening book, primarily focussing on his time spent at Great Dixter, a garden I’ve been taken to each year since I was knee high to a grasshopper…
