savourites: may’s six best things
free to read | goslings | unmissable feminist theatre | latest obsessions
A couple of days ago I went for a swim in the River Avon. It’s not my part of the world; we were there for an annual mass gathering of my family. There were wild horses that my husband and I had to remark upon silently because our son couldn’t see them from his car seat and it became apparent it was cruel to point them out and bugger all phone signal and it was alarmingly relaxing.
Anyway, I was swimming in the river and my brother, brother-in-law and I were challenging ourselves to swim under the arches of this ancient bridge where the current was incredibly strong. I was pushing my body swift and hard but getting nowhere.* It was ludicrous and fun and hard work and refreshing.
May’s felt a bit like that: a delicious endurance. There was solo parenting and a paperback launch and the flower show and I’ve been racking up the word count and dealing with tantrums and heatwaves and making good food and sweating and opening and closing all the windows and curtains in the house. I have felt so alive and so lucky and so existentially panicked, all at once. Here’s the good bits:
*That part of the river was shallow enough to walk through. In the end we made steps for the final bit of the way, then whizzed through the other side of the bridge on the current. I wonder if June will be like this.
tasty morsels
guerilla stickers
I’m not sure when my friend’s May Bank Holiday Weekend barbecue first started, but I’ve been going to them for at least five years. In the beginning, they were the kind of barbecue that you ate beforehand, because most of the things on offer were crisps. Now there’s a table with an array of condiments and brioche buns and potato salad. This year there was a pale pink pavlova and seasonal berries. We’re growing up, I guess. Other evidence of growing-up ness: children! Mine were two of five in attendance. At some point, my son got his stickers out of his “packpack” and started bestowing them to choice attendees. At that point in the day, when the garden - and house - were full, but people were still warming up, it made for a strangely ideal ice-breaker, and kept him occupied enough so that I could actually have a conversation.
hand-me-down things on new babies
Three friends had babies this month! Three new whole babies! Our babies were furnished by the generosity of others’ hand-me-downs, and I remember being so struck by this tidal wave of passed-on baby stuff before my son was born. But now I have a constant tote bag on the go of things the baby has grown out of to pass onto the new babies and there is such good cleansing delight in getting rid of things you no longer need, especially when the person who needs it is a tiny baby or a good friend and you get to see photos of the new baby in the hand-me-down thing, the latest in a long line of new people to be wrapped in a blanket or a sleepsuit, it makes you wonder why anyone ever buys new things.
the savour new baby gift list
I’ve been asked what to buy new parents since becoming a mother and found it strangely difficult to answer; so much of this time evaporates. Here’s a list, from someone who can still remember.
front garden flower subscription
I’m fortunate enough to be within the delivery area of Ros Ball, who grows flowers in other people’s front gardens (with their permission, obvs) and then cuts them and cycles the bunches to people who live nearby. Since we moved in I told myself that the house was such a dump that flowers would only showcase its… dumpiness. But actually the opposite is true. It’s amazing how lovely my Weetabix-covered, sad-Venetian-blind-clad, very-much-a-former-rental kitchen is improved by a bunch of locally grown seasonal flowers. I wish more people would ape Ros, it’s such a clever idea.
goslings
They have arrived in the pond at the park and they come out onto the grass to eat things and they are so tame and fluffy and sweet that I heartily sympathised when I overheard my son reasoning to a friend that if they were gentle enough they could touch them (I did point out the wary eyes of the parental geese; we didn’t touch them. But oh! They are so fluffy).
spontaneous picnic
On the really hot day - you know, that unbearable Saturday - we lured friends over from the other side of town and when it became apparent that they’d have to walk through the park because Thameslink was down (obviously, because Thameslink is always bloody down) I felt so bad about the extra three minutes of walking in the weather that I decided (truly, a decision made of extreme heat) that the only solution was to pack up the heavily Ella Risbridger-informed lunch I’d been working on and carry it to the park to meet them there. Our garden is too tree-deprived to offer shade. And so we sprawled under a great big oak tree, drinking hibiscus tea (see below) and encouraging the children to consider eating a sandwich as well as all the watermelon (although who could blame them) and it was much better than doing it in the house, all told.
existential contact nap
I was always a bit scared of contact naps with the first baby, lest we develop some kind of cuddle addiction. But the second baby seems to nap well-enough, and so I’ve taken to doing the short afternoon one curled sweatily on the sofa, while thinking a lot about the passage of time and the meaning of life and trying to eat biscuits without waking her up or getting crumbs in her ear.
to read
“Am I choosing writing over motherhood?”
In which Emma Gannon and I unpick that most taboo of subjects and remain Good Friends.
Sophie Mackintosh’s post on pregnancy loss is one of the most tender and remarkable things I’ve read in a long time.
this post on Hark
Which really gets to what I was trying to do with the book in a very special way:
to listen to
is it ever OK to put your kids on social media?
I can still remember the first time I spoke to Sam Parker : he called me up as a newly appointed editor of our student newspaper. I was working on the shop floor of a stultifying French brand in Bicester Village and remember hiding behind the counter to discuss the fact he was asking me to be Entertainment Editor. That was 19 (!) years ago. Now we both have kids and books and ennui, but, as this episode of his brilliant Good Father podcast demonstrates, the ability to make one another laugh and also Get Deep. Watch and listen here.
to watch
glastonbury for people who wear linen
My take on Chelsea this year is below but I strongly recommend you sit and watch all of Grayson Perry’s, which is both accurate and highly entertaining. Among a sea of pastel florals you could spot his anorak a mile off:
the chelsea flower show leaves me exhausted
Recently I realised that the RHS Chelsea Flower Show was the horticultural equivalent of Coachella, the annual event in Palm Springs that has long been a marketing exercise first, and a music festival second.
to go to
Yes! It’s still happening. I’m at Notting Hill Daunts tomorrow evening with Elinor Cleghorn, and then Veranda on Thursday with Lauren Elkin to discuss her incredible book Vocal Break and then, next week, at Omved Gardens with Joycelyn Longdon.
A disclaimer: M has been instrumental in getting this play into the West End, but as evidence of how much I listen to him talk about his job, I only really found this out after I went and subsequently grilled him about it because it’s hard for us to go to the theatre together these days and it is one of the best things I’ve seen since The Years. If you liked that, I suspect you would very much enjoy this. Tudors! Feminism! Girl talk!
to eat
air fryer cookies
I became that person who a) makes cookie dough with their children and b) doubles up the recipe to make some for the freezer and c) gives boxes of frozen cookie dough to kind neighbours this month. Will it ever happen again? I doubt it. But let me tell you: Ravneet Gill’s cookie dough recipe works in the air fryer and that means cookies without heating the oven and that is a very potent combination, my friend.
Nutymax
Picked one of these up from the Turkish supermarket and it was like a pistachio Kinder Bueno? Incredible stuff.
latest obsessions: iced tea edition
There was the summer of lemon verbena iced tea. This year it’s ramped up early. I want to cool down, I rarely day-drink any more, I don’t need any more sugar. My current favourite involves hibiscus flowers (the bright pink water!) and a couple of rose tea bags in a massive old enamel coffee pot with a squeeze of honey, the juice of a few limes and a fat handful of mint. I suspect this could be improved upon, but we’ve got all summer.
