Passementerie

It was a murky, ominous evening in Oxford...

The lanterns swayed in the wind under a darkening sky as we arrived at the most glamorous Oxford ball of the season...

Gradually the main quad filled up with people as we emerged from dinner - black tie, white tie, long gowns, cocktail gowns, saris and kimonos - whatever people had chosen to wear for the evening, everyone looked exquisitely elegant.

After a heavy rain shower, the warm air as you passed through the doorway leading from the Shelley Memorial to the Fellows' Garden was filled with green smells and a tropical atmosphere.

As the sky gradually became darker with clouds and the coming nightfall, the lanterns strung up over every quad became more and more dramatic.

Earlier in the evening I joined my husband and his friends in the garden of a house on Merton Street before going on to the ball.  I wore a rose pink duchesse satin gown from Coast with a cropped oriental-style embroidered jacket from Topshop - any balls I have been to in the past have been earlier in the year and have resulted in freezing to death by midnight.  In fact, when I went to the Trinity Ball in Dublin many years ago I had the good sense to wear thermal leggings, a warm camisole, wooly socks and boots under my gown as well as a full length fur-trimmed evening coat on top and was JUST ABOUT warm enough.  God that was an awful night, now that I think of it.  Not glamorous AT ALL.

As it happened, though, we are heading into a bit of a heatwave here in Oxford now and the jacket wasn't necessary in the end last night.  I was planning to wear a heavily embroidered shawl from Himachal Pradesh over my gown, but the threatened rain made me stick with the jacket and I'm glad I didn't expose the shawl to the risk of grass-stains and rain after all.

Almost every corner of the college had some sort of entertainment - a Killers cover band in the Rad quad, a capella in the Dining Hall, card tricks by the library and laser battles in the Fellows' Garden.  Wherever there *wasn't* entertainment there was food and drink - tents devoted to gin cocktails or champagne, sushi, wok treats, Ben & Jerry's ice-cream, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and more...

Strapless dresses and I have always had a complicated relationship, but I was brave...

...although in true Passmenterie style, when I made a quick dash home to feed the baby halfway through the night (devoted motherhood, no?) and the heavens opened to a tremendous deluge and thunderstorm, I decided that a full-length gown might lead to difficulties at largely outdoor ball, and so I changed into a vintage-style raw silk ivory cocktail dress, ivory umbrella and slightly more danceable-in heels.  In the end, the night seemed to get hotter and hotter and I might have died in the heavy gown in which I started the night, so I was very glad of the lighter dress.

Luckily, the weather had done its worst so far as the rain was concerned and the rest of the night stayed dry, which meant that my coiffure survived admirably (not least because it was the sort of style that could be let down and put up again in under a minute if part of it came loose after over-enthusiastic dancing.

The next morning saw my husband leap out of bed at a most uncivilized hour to make coffee and pick up croissants at a nearby bakery in order to go punting for the morning with all his friends.  I ignored this ridiculous behaviour and went back to sleep so as to conserve energy for our afternoon walk by the Thames for Sunday lunch at the Trout.

So never let me say that Oxford is less than fabulous again, right?

For something very different today, go and read My Marrakech.  If you're not already a fan, you should be.

I'm pathetic.

I used to love living alone.  It was so peaceful and quiet and I could come home at the end of the day and be completely sure of a nice evening curled up with a book with nobody to bug me or interrupt me.  Then I got married and it all went wrong.  Not the part where I have the company of my husband in the evenings - I *like* that - there's nobody else I would rather spend every hour of the day with. 

No, my problem is what to do when he's NOT there.  My routine is completely flung out of kilter and I don't know what to do with myself. 

I waste (even more) time on the internet, procrastinate about food so that I end up not eating until 9.30pm, knock over and break my glass of wine and spend twenty minutes scrabbling around under the couch for the stem of the glass (it never turned up - where *is* it?), watch twenty minutes of a Richard Gere film (why?) and then, with the profoundest relief, see that it is nearly 10.30pm and I can give the baby her night feed and slink off to bed in mortification at myself.

Adventures in the Sun

When I got in this evening from a little shopping excursion my husband put his arms around me and nuzzled my neck.

"You smell of the sun."

"That would be my sunblock, my love"

"Aha! I thought you smelled like adventure..."

Our adventures are almost always in hot countries so wherever we go, a bottle of Shiseido SPF50 face and body lotion comes too.  Bicester Village may not be a very adventurous destination (it yielded a fabulously retro-looking turquoise Le Creuset frying pan for £30 today, though), but it certainly warranted my adventure sunblock today.

Yesterday was warm too, but still needed a cardigan and trousers...  we had ice-cream from George & Danvers and a very long walk in Christchurch Meadow and by the Thames.

Getting on with life

For the last week or so, the baby has been waking up just once during the night, a development which has had a spectacular effect on my energy in the mornings.  My response to this new-found matutinal vigour is a desire to seize this month's World of Interiors and deposit myself in the garden with a cup of coffee for the morning while Beatrice has her two-hour morning nap (did I mention how marvelous my offspring is? For those of you without babies, you should know that a sleeping infant is a good infant). 

However, I am being virtuous and sitting at the Victorian oak dining table in my front window, a vase of spikey white stock before me and attempting to make productive academic work a part of my new morning routine. 

Wish me luck.

My visiting cards from happygirlgreetings on Etsy arrived yesterday and they're fabulous!  Thank you Laura Beth!

Photo above (and don't you wish you had stairs as fantastic as these?) from the guest house of Muriel Brandolini, photographed by Eric Boman, in this month's World of Interiors, with thanks.

Bicycle baskets and babies

The first thing my husband did when he attached the basket to my bicycle was to pop the baby into it.  She looked very sweet but I think this Cambodian baby, photographed for National Geographic, looks even more impressive in his makeshift, but probably quite comfortable, bicycle sling...

Photograph with thanks to National Geographic, from here.

A Summer Party

The weather was inclement, so the party was moved indoors, but due to popular demand I had my husband take a picture of my in all my Cath Kidston-y glory in the garden before our guests arrived.

There was a cake.  It was huge and, at the risk of sounding a bit nineties, very moreish.  Just a plain ordinary sponge filled with black cherry jam and lashings of whipped cream - Nigella Lawson's Black Forest Victoria Sponge.  In the end though, it was the little cake behind that stole the show - Nigella's Lemon Drizzle Cake, tarted up with some raspberries that I had lurking in the freezer.

The Salmorejo was my favourite part, I have to admit.  We used to eat it a lot in Marrakech - cool, filling and easy.  I made the eggplant caviar and the hummous myself on Friday and then John made the taboulleh, caprese salad and salmorejo on Saturday morning while my cakes were cooling.  The fruit in the foreground is for the Pimm's, which was made at the last minute and consumed immediately, hence the absence of fizzy photos!

Finally there was a baby.  A slightly crabby baby, who demanded a constant succession of feedings and naps during the afternoon, utterly undoing her hitherto wonderful reputation as a very social baby, but who still contrived to charm our guests with her, well, drool and changeable mood.  Hmm.  I'm not sure how she charmed them, because she seemed slightly awful to me, but there you have it.  People must just like babies sometimes.

 

Wonderful, beautiful and generally very pleasing blog diana:muse has changed both name AND address - she is now Swoond and can be found at http://www.swoond.com

Parties, Pimm's and sunshine. Oh. Wait.

I had forgotten that I live in England.  So although we planned a summer garden party for this afternoon so that our friends could come over and enjoy summery food, summery drinks and our summery garden on (almost) the longest day of the year, it may well be that we do it all safely inside, with the central heating on so that I don't get cold in my new summer dress (see last post).  It is grey, drizzly and a rather grim 13 degrees (55F).

But nothing daunted, my husband is outside hiding some bags of gravel to make the area outside the back door with our new table and chairs a little more presentable, and the menu is a summery as you could ever desire - salmorejo, eggplant caviar, hummous, caprese salad, taboulleh (I'll post further details with recipes - maybe even with pictures tomorrow!), cakes (Nigella) and of course, it wouldn't be a summer party in Oxford, no matter what the weather, without Pimm's. 

Can you ever forgive me?

I just got this:

And I love it.

Lilac Bunches belted dress from Cath Kidston

Further Adventures of a Yummy Mummy

It can't be denied really.  When you look in the mirror before going out for a walk with the baby and behold yourself in a Ralph Lauren tweed jacket,* Hunter wellies, Topshop straight-leg jeans (Martha - very flattering), pearl earrings and gently teased pigtails under a floppy knitted hat, you have to ask yourself two questions. 

1) Why do I live in a country where tweed jackets, wellies and knitted hats are necessary in June?

and

2) How did Passementerie come from being a corset, pvc and Smegg boot wearing goth with dread falls, cyber goggles and her own night club (if your city doesn't have the sort of night club that you'd like to go to, open one yourself) to being a bona fide yummy mummy? 

I bake, have acupuncture every week and the only reason we don't get the Guardian on a Saturday is because it's more environmentally friendly to read it online.  I almost nauseate myself just writing this.  But you know what?  I love it.  I love sitting out in my garden with our newly seeded lawn getting greener every day, reading Edith Wharton to the baby (and why not?  it's not like she can understand the Very Hungry Caterpillar yet either) and pondering the guest list for an afternoon party next weekend (Pimm's and cake).  I love that our holiday this year will be en famille in a villa in Umbria and that I have developed an irrational desire for a Cath Kidston dress.

We haven't "settled down" and if ever we do, it will be back in Paris, not Oxford and our travels will only get more adventurous as the years pass thanks to the convenient added educational imperative of bringing our children everywhere - I can't wait for Beatrice and her future siblings to clamber through the ruins of Angkor Wat and to bring her - them -  trekking in Peru.

In the meantime, my horizons are a little narrower, but that is not to say that I can't take pleasure out of my life here in Oxford whether I'm reading fifteenth century manuscripts in the Bodleian or making a day trip to Bicester Village with my most amiable baby.

Are you even remotely how you thought you would be when you were 20?

Now.  On to more important things - have you read the short story "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton?  If not, stop wasting time on blogs and go read it now.   I was so excited by it that I dug out my copy of  The Age of Innocence - having finished that, I'm now reading Anna Karenina.  What are you reading?

I'm sorry for not writing here for so long.  I was unwell for a couple of weeks, but am back on form now!

*When I bought my RL purple label tweed suit on ebay for what was to me quite a lot of money, I was anxious about getting enough wear out of it to justify the expense, but it has been worth every penny.  I don't wear the skirt terribly often because it's a little old for me, but the jacket is a staple.  Take note.

Image above with thanks to Cath Kidston - radio available here.

The Affair of the Slipper

I want slippers.  Specifically, grown-up, elegant, silk mules.  I have looked and looked and looked and can find nothing as nice as these vintage ones below.

Can you help?

Image with many thanks to Nostalgia at the Stone House