I have a drawer in my kitchen, the ‘top drawer’ that perfectly mirrors my state of mind. If you want to know how I’m going, enter the kitchen and open the drawer. I’m not going to bore your with the details of the hurricane of life for the last fortnight but today; the house and garden have been blitzed - everything is in order and we can once again breathe. The ‘top drawer’ is clean, ordered and calm.
Apologies for re-jigging the schedule this Sunday but now that life is in order I can happily pull together a lovely, lovely edition for you, full of Christmas-y type reads, listens and looks. This is our last newsletter for the year - there will be two special editions over the course of the school holidays, I can’t tell you when they will come, they’ll just arrive when they’re ready! Merry Christmas everyone - I hope you have a safe, enjoyable, relaxing and rejuvenating festive season - and thank you for all your support here. Sxx
Podcast Playlist
A very dear friend forwarded me this most beautiful album a few weeks ago and it has been on repeat in the car, just beautiful.
We had The Holiday soundtrack on today and this Christmas playlist.
In the podcast department; Bertie Blackman’s bohemian childhood, Asher Keddie with Mia Freedman and ‘Presentenomics’ (fascinating).
Lay your eyes on these Instagram accounts
@hotelulysses || @jonaspeterson_ai (pictured) || @thechalkboardmag - esp the ones on NY’s resolutions
This pile of things to read
Nikki Gemmell’s column in The Australia conjures up a beautiful excitement about the slow, sluggish days ahead as we wind down towards the end of the year. (Paywall, apologies). I was the prefect thing to read today.
“The dream is the nap, now, preferably face down on the sand, with the roar and thump of the surf behind us. or on our back in a swag in a dry creek bed under the shade of a river gum. Or perhaps on a cane couch tucked deep within the veranda’s coolness. In the womb of a darkened bedroom, under a ceiling fan, among a mess of sheets. On a dipping sofa as the cricket gently thwacks and murmurs from the box … bring on the holiday season, I say, and the sovereignty of the daytime nap.” - Nikki Gemmell, The Australian
A new set of Christmas rituals from a woman who celebrates spending the day alone.
Negroni with a Christmas twist. I can never really handle Negorni’s but a have a swag of family who get very excited by them!
These Goodbye/Hello Journals replace New Year’s Resolutions for
- I’ve bought the digital version so I don’t have to wait for the book to arrive and am looking forward to filling our the reflections part for this year and making sure I don’t get too ambitious about the plans for the year ahead.New newsletters
Family Friend by
- Two (Lasagna) Sheets to the Wind.Social Life, with Friends latest edition ‘On bringing people together’
Goodbye for now dear readers; be safe, be happy and please allow yourself some read and reading time over the next few weeks. Sxx
Thank you for including my new project, Skye! ❤️
Thanks so much for the mention, Skye!