Wouldn’t Life Be Lovelier
With Seasonal Routines, Rituals and Teeny, Daily Celebrations?
The Autumn House
Hello me Darlings, welcome to Autumn at BrocanteHome! Today I bring you a newly revised and refreshed Life-Book edition of my cosy guide to all things Autumnal – a workbook version of my tiny little Kindle book so you can make notes and scribble in it to your hearts content. With atmospheric essays, puttery treats, homemaking recipes,…
Housekeeper’s Diary
A long, hot night finally broken by rain that leaves the damp air smelling like diluted orange juice. We stumble out of bed at the same time and convene bewildered, rubbing away sleep, on the landing. Even the house feels restless. Spiders who have taken shelter from the heat scurrying up towards the skylight and…
Housekeeper’s Diary
Hello friends. How nice to be here talking to you again. I woke up this morning with the urge to write to you tingling in my fingertips and a person cannot be expected to resist a tingle now can a person, even if she has declared herself to be on her annual August holiday from…
Housekeeper’s Diary
A long, moody Sunday, remarkable only for the flow of the deeply splendid ordinary. Laundry hung on the line and a chicken roasting in the oven. Potatoes already par-boiled and roughed up in goose fat and Himalayan salt. First thing this morning, I was on my knees cleaning out the bathroom cupboard. A fierce energy…
50 Super Quick Scrumptiously Fresh Treats For Summer
I’m all about scrumptiousness, me. While I usually regale you with half a dozen puttery treats when the mood takes me, I know that finding time to breathe when the kids are under your feet in the Summer is a task and a half , and so today I wanted to offer 50 Brocantehome style…
Where I’m At
Hello, I’m so sorry I haven’t been around. One of the oddest things about being a blogger is that when sad things happen, I have to toss a coin to decide whether to share the details of that sadness or disappear in order to let my silence do all the talking you need to know….
Housekeeper’s Diary
Today. A rainbow of roses from my son’s beautiful girlfriend, a much anticipated email that has gone unanswered and a love letter that stabs needles in and out of my heart. Each line another jab at dreams I have nurtured and cherished for so long now. But enough already. There is much to do! I…
Coping When You Would Rather Be Thriving
People – friends, doctors, counsellors – keep looking at me and saying I don’t know how you are standing up. Or how much more you can take. And then they catch themselves and say “Oh but you are strong!” and I want to stamp my feet and say NOOOOOOO, I’m not strong, I’m pretending! (And…
Souped Up Cars and Other Guardian Angels
A day alone. I am re-living my Sunday’s of old, watching Sex and the City and eating my familiar, single lady meals of M&S prawns with cocktail sauce, and huge bowls of Caesar salad. Hold the croutons please. Food that doesn’t bloat me. Food that strips the flesh off my hip bones and makes me feel…
Stevie and I
I know. Those of you who have followed me for years have just keeled over in shock seeing Finley, six feet tall, and a boy now in possession of a beard. Honestly? It makes no more sense to me than it does to you. Where did the little boy in all these posts go? Thank heavens then…
On Not Being Accomplished
In the olden days when ladies were ladies and Love Island didn’t exist, great store was set by the need for women of a certain class to be “accomplished”, not just in manners, etiquette and deportment, but in all manner of arts, crafts and domestic achievement. A proper lady knew how to behave in social…
Housekeeper’s Diary
A gorgeous Sunday after a lovely weekend of pavement café drinks and chatty teenagers. And now, peace. The sun cracking the flags and the lane quiet except for the buzz of lawnmowers and bees. I have made cheese and rosemary scones and juiced oranges, laid the garden table with a checked cloth and flung up…