I wrote the following post quite a long time ago... and lost it. I recently came across it again and wanted to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it!
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Yesterday I made like I was the French girl carrying out her
maintenance. Maintenance of herself and
maintenance of her home (and in the process, maintenance of her relationship
with her man).
On a Sunday morning my husband and I have been enjoying for
a while our little routine of Sunday paper(s) in bed with English Breakfast
tea. We get the papers delivered so my
husband goes down to the gate to get them while I make the tea. I don’t like to sound like the ideal consumer
but we got the idea off an ad for Twinings English Breakfast tea. It showed Nigella Lawson taking her big mug
of tea back up to bed of a morning, with the papers.
When we’re sick of reading the papers and our backs are
getting sore from sitting up in bed we head down for breakfast. Often I will make something a bit treat-y for
Sunday breakfast. We used to go out for
brunch but our business being open seven days a week stopped that for now. So we recreate it at home. And actually I prefer it. There are no other people (I really don’t
like ‘other people’ most of the time, I like my own space) and it’s a fraction
of the cost. And we can be as healthy or
unhealthy as we like.
Today we had virtually no breakfast foods in the house
(bacon, sausages) so I made scrambled eggs with cream and dill and baked beans on
wholegrain toast. Quite an English
breakfast I think! With that we had
coffee freshly made in the Bialetti. I
make a good strong brew and pour a shot into the cup then top with warm milk
for a homemade cafe au lait.
Then after I farewelled my husband to work after the kitchen
was tidied and the dishes were done I put some clothes in the washing
machine. Vacuuming and mopping comes
later. I got down our Le Crueset lidded
casserole and set it going with chicken carcasses from the freezer (from roast dinners)
and hot water to simmer for stock all day.
And as for my body maintenance, firstly I gave myself a
pedicure. I had only my second
professional pedicure last month when I was visiting my mother. The first one about 15 years ago I have
blocked from my memory as it hurt so much.
She really hacked into my cuticles and so I have never had another
one. The second one, my mother had been
given a gift voucher for an hour long deluxe pedicure but didn’t want to show
anyone her ‘ugly toes/feet’. Isn’t that
the point?
I wasn’t arguing though, and before too long I was sitting
up on a beauty therapy bed in a serene, dimly lit room. My feet soaked in warm water before being
exfoliated and massaged (up to the knees - blissful) then cuticles were pushed
back and nails painted - ‘Paris’ red, but of course. The therapist said ‘choose a colour’. When I saw they were named after cities, I
had to look for Paris and luckily I loved the colour – a bright, cheery
orange/red.
I am removing the polish and doing my own pedicure
today. I will remember to use the pink
foam toe separators as they made such a good job of my toes. And I filed rather than clipped my nails. I have normally clipped my toenails and they
are too short. Following on from the
pedicure I will file them. They look so
much nicer slightly rounded and level with my toes.
Everything I am doing has Carla Bruni playing softly in the
background, to really put me in the mood to channel Sabine.
Next comes the shower, with scrubby body gloves and shower
gel, hair wash and legs shaved. I
slather myself in sweet-scented body lotion and then paint my toes (with toe
separators).
For lunch I made macaroni cheese (from scratch using real
ingredients and herbs from our garden) and had a small portion of this (maybe
two inches square) with... a salad. I
can’t not have a salad now. I had a
craving for macaroni cheese and bought some macaroni elbows yesterday. In today’s Sunday paper – a recipe for
macaroni cheese. Being Autumn I probably
can’t take credit for that coincidence – every man and his dog probably had
macaroni cheese for lunch. It was one of
my favourite meals as a kid, and we often had it for Sunday lunch.
I will be enjoying the leftovers for lunch at work as well.
After some folding of washing, and vacuuming my husband
arrived home, and I relaxed with a wine and the rest of the Sunday papers.
The best thing about a day of home and self-maintenance is
that it is entirely free. I think it is
very chic to be thrifty. Any old fool
can go out shopping for lovely new things with their credit card, but it takes
effort and imagination to spend (and enjoy) a day of cleaning and beautifying.
Rather than look at housework as a chore that I begrudgingly
half-do, I try to keep in mind to enjoy the process while I do it and also know
who I am doing it for – the peace and well-being of my husband and I. My husband has been working hard all day and
I love that he exclaims how inviting our home looks when he steps in – every
single time.
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Wishing you a wonderful week, and Happy Thanksgiving to my USA friends!
Fiona
PS. Christmas will be here soon, and I wanted to remind you about my book '
A Chic and Simple Christmas'.
If Christmas stresses you out every year, can I invite you to look at
it in a different way? One reviewer said of this book '
A very non-traditional Christmas book - but thought provoking' and another 'Used the ideas to have probably the best, low stress, Christmas I have ever had.' Yay!
Check out the Amazon 'Look Inside' function to see if 'A Chic and Simple Christmas' is your cup of tea. Available in paperback and on Kindle here.
