And here are some more photies! Of some of the most brilliant people that we’re lucky to know and call our friends who joined us at our wedding. What a day!
Unfortunately, you can’t have more than 20 photos or tag more than 20 people on instagram posts – we could have gone on and on! Thanks again to @pictures.moving for the official pics and thanks to everyone else for taking so many others 📸
Jan-Feb in reverse featuring all the things that dominated the start of the year: rain, moody skies, me looking up at buildings/the sky/the rain/the trees, coffees and matcha, bread – satisfying slicing of my tin loaf, plus bagels and buns – and a reorganised set of book shelves.
This time last year I set myself a goal to change my lifestyle – to get fitter and eat better so I could feel more myself than I had been feeling over recent years. And I did it! Over the last 12 months I have gained a new perspective that I’ve not allowed myself to have before, particularly in my 20s. I often think of it as giving oneself permission to change, to grow, to try something else. When I was 18, I did a summer school at Guildhall and our director Dinah said to us that if you’re aware of something you do that you don’t like, you can change it. Simply being aware of it means you’re capable of change. That really stuck with me, mostly because of its simplicity, but also because I felt so deeply that I had things I wanted to do but didn’t know how to do them.
If you’ll allow me to quote Taylor Swift in her Time Person of the Year 2023 interview, “Every part of you that you’ve ever been, every phase you’ve ever gone through, was you working it out in that moment with the information you had available to you at the time. There’s a lot that I look back at like, ‘Wow, a couple years ago I might have cringed at this?’ You should celebrate who you are now, where you’re going, and where you’ve been.”
My goal for 2026 is to continue to become more myself. To embrace new versions of me and to celebrate change! Growth is a commitment to yourself every day, no matter how small. It all counts!
A magical time in Stroud at the weekend for @sepr ’s fantastic exhibition and gig! @robinallender did some vibey fingerpicking, as well as an encore of Lady in Red (he can’t/won’t/shouldn’t ever stop doing this song live). @lucyjanepenn brought us chilli and rice in a Tupperware!
Robin asked me to marry him when we were in Edinburgh last month! And I said yes!! We asked @pictures.moving to take a formal picture of us as an engaged pair in Margate last weekend, which he kindly did, and here it is.
Second photo is of the big moment! Third, in the Dagda after, fourth is us in the Blue Blazer and the fifth is from the only analogue photobooth in Edinburgh in the Stills Gallery on Cockburn Street.
It has taken me 20 years to reconnect to exercise in a positive way, having felt rejected by it in my teens (I know a lot of other women share this experience). But now I have, I’m so grateful for it. I never thought I’d complete 30 minutes of running but with some determination, @realdeniselewis ’s voice and Robin’s ambient album for company, I’ve truly surprised myself. 🏃🏼♀️
Karla’s Valentine’s Day supper club last night. My first time eating sopes, which are little round corn patties cooked and then deep fried. Karla topped hers with refried beans and prawns, with a beautiful salsa macha. My favourite course was the second – a red corn tetela stuffed with chard and mozzarella (so perfectly soft and bouncy because of its thickness, cheesy and crispy), with coriander sauce and roasted radishes. Pink mole (!) with poussin, and a set coconut cream with strawbs. Thank you Karla!
Thank you to everyone who submitted answers to my ‘what do you call the remote control?’ question. Some people I’ve heard from have taken a trip down memory lane, remembering what their parents called it and some have been surprised it’s called anything other than the ‘remote’. I enjoy the many names beginning with D. I wonder what other languages call it (let me know!). If yours does not appear, share it in the comments!
Some housekeeping: a number present means how many times the name came up; I have left in ‘the’ when people seemed keen to include it; and I’ve included spelling variations, well, for fun? Here goes:
The beep
The blipper
The box
The buttons (5)
The changer (2)
Clicker (4)
Dibber
Doobree
Doobry (spelling variation)
Doodad
Doofah (spelling variation)
Doofer (4)
Doohicker
Dibdab
Gizmo (2)
The gun (2)
Handset
Pauser
Plinker plonker
Mote
Remoke
Remote (13)
Remote control
Slobnob
The thing
Tremole
Twiddler
Zapper
