The moodboard edit
Decisions and revisions
Aren’t these tulips the loveliest pale lilac? Alba - the poor child - has been drilled on the garden tulips this week. If I point to the one pictured behind Jacuzzi, shocking pink with a yellow base and prompt her with ‘Tom…?’ - she’ll shout ‘POUNCE!’, in reply. Very pleasing. Her favourites - as you’d expect from a three year old - are the ones which involve foxes: Foxtrot, Apricot Foxx and Foxy Foxtrot. But she may have reached peak tulip, holding up three orange magnetic tiles this morning with a glint in her eye. ‘Mummy, these are APRICOT FOX!’ I’m fairly certain she was ribbing me, and am ridiculously proud of her for doing it with a tulip joke.
But today’s post is about creative overwhelm, and not about tulips. I’m not sure if it’s a curse or a blessing, but at any given time, I have about 36 creative ideas in my head. And my inability to execute all of them, immediately, in their entirety feels intensely frustrating. Is this normal?! Ideally, I’d have multiple screens and multiple arms and desks and type with a couple of the hands, research interior decor with another, do some sketching with another, and so on.
The children say or do something, and I’ll think: 'I want to remember this forever, I must write it down’, and then I forget, and feel like I’ve lost a bit of them in forgetting. Or a bit of the house will jump at me, saying: ‘Have you thought about how much better I’d look, if you just installed a lamp up there, and a mirror over there, and maybe repainted that bit of wall? And why not put a new rug in, while you’re at it?’. And rather than sort out any of the actual to-do list, or meal prep or order food for the house or get ahead of my deadlines, this will spiral into a 48 hour fixation, where I research and moodboard every aspect of the potential project, to the point where I exhaust all interest in it (unless I’ve been foolish enough to purchase as I go, in which case the renovation needs to be executed as soon as everything arrives, or risk sitting in boxes, unopened for months.) It’s exhausting.
These are a few of the things on the creative to-do list:
Work on a cookbook proposal. After telling my agent that I categorically did not have any more ideas for a cookbook, that I was through with recipe writing and wanted to be a REAL WRITER (much in the style of Marilyn saying she wanted to be a REAL ACTRESS*), in the last two minutes of our conversation I accidentally outlined a cookery idea, which Felicity loved. So now it turns out I do have a cookbook to work on. Which might help with the next thing on my list, which is:
Block print tablecloths. Specifically, Rajasthani block print tablecloths. They’ve been on my mind - and in several online shopping baskets - for weeks - probably influenced by having seen so many lovely ones on Substack posts and similar. Should I buy some? I thought it’d be nice for the girls to have some Indian things around the house - other than myself - to help with their sense of identity. (Even if the tablecloths are from Jaipur, and the children are 1/4 Bengali, 1/4 Tamilian and 1/2 Cornish-Irish-English.)
I quite like the sort of heavy French stripy linen which looks like a giant tea-towel, though I have no cultural link with giant tea-towels. I did see a lovely linen one with a dusky pink ombré dip turning to white, but it was £70+ and I am not spending £70 on a tablecloth that will get covered in mashed banana within 30 seconds. Ideally I want about five cheerful cotton ones that can go in the wash - but we’re supposed to be budgeting, so I probably shouldn’t buy five, or several sets of artfully mismatched Indian block print napkins, which I’ve coveted ever since dinner at Jikoni. And definitely not a second parasol for the garden, even though the cheap one I bought last year is falling to bits. Bah humbug.
The outdoor moodboard. But more importantly than the money (ha!) what’s bothering me is a sort of existential crisis. What sort of tablecloth represents my authentic self? What is my authentic self? WHO AM I? And why am I faffing about with tablecloths, WHILE THE WORLD IS BURNING?
To the next serious item: the children’s playhouse. I looked at every single wooden playhouse on the Internet last month, and the only one I liked, beautifully made, aesthetically pleasing and within budget, was on Etsy. At time of writing, it was due to arrive today between 6pm and 7pm, and it’s now 9pm - there is no sign of a playhouse. Update: it is 11pm, and two lovely chaps - who have declined all offers of coffee - are assembling the playhouse at the end of the (dark) garden. I rigged the outdoor Christmas lights over the lilac tree so they’ve got some light to work by - the late night construction now has a festive air.
Anyway, now that I’ve found the right playhouse, I’ve spent the last few days obsessively researching playhouse furniture. Which has meant looking at every single child sized chair, washable rug, side table, coffee table, desk, cabinet, and mirror on the internet, and rejecting them - too plastic, too much MDF, wrong sort of wood, wrong sort of shape, legs too thin, or the item is just too darn wide for a space measuring 180cm x 120cm. And I guess the children need room to get in there too? Bah.
But - some success! I pinned down the cornerstone items: the world’s sweetest tiny green and cane woven children’s chairs (La Redoute) and a washable colourful rug (Dunelm - you see, I am working on a budget - also is it just me, or do Dunelm have some really fantastic things?) Then it was just a casual three hours at my desk, ruining both my posture and eyesight, adding and rejecting until I was basically furniture blind. Finally, this:
Except now I’ve found the loveliest little wooden market stall which I could furnish with wooden fruit and vegetables, and wonder if that wouldn’t be nicer than a rustic play bench? SEND HELP.
The thing I would like to do most is write and illustrate some little books - not proper children’s books to go to my agent or anything - just the little notebooks I gave each of the girls for their birthdays, telling them that I was going to write and draw in them through the year, so when they were older they could look back at them as a sort of journal. Unsurprisingly, I got blank looks from both. I took the books back, put them with my personal stash of colouring pencils and decent pens (you cannot put a pen near Mia, she actually bites off the tops of the felt tips - maniac) and have in the last few months made painfully few entries in them - there are some wonky sketches, and a couple of things the girls did which were particularly funny - but really there are nowhere near as many entries as I’d intended.
But - one of the things I want to write and draw up in the books was our really very lovely afternoon this week. Alba helped me to pot up some sturdy edible lupin seedlings in repurposed tin cans before Mia woke from her nap, and it was just too nice a day to go back inside. So I found the swimsuits, rigged up two makeshift bathtubs (one my own yellow plastic baby bath, one a laundry basket) on a heap of Turkish towels, under the (cheap) parasol, and spent the next hour ferrying hot water and ice lollies in from the kitchen. (It’s all open plan with the whole back wall of the kitchen sliding and tucking away, so the children were within a few steps & in eyeline.) While they played in the tubs**, I made a no-effort dinner - fishfingers, peas, Shana parathas, strawberries, oranges, and set the outdoor table with a tablecloth I already had (bought some 20 years ago in Galicia). When they finally agreed to get out, I couldn’t dry them with the sodden Turkish towels, or go upstairs to fetch their clean towels, so - don’t judge me - I had to wrap them up in some of Pepper’s. They were freshly washed…!
The whole afternoon might have been the nicest I’ve had with the children. They lolled against me on the garden sofa over dinner, one against each side, wriggling, chatting and delightful. We didn’t have the perfect tablecloth or outdoor rug or parasol, we didn’t have an immaculately styled playhouse.** All the moodboards that I spend hours on to create the perfect living space, the perfect play space - and the girls are happy with undivided attention, hot water and fishfingers.
I’ll try to remember that before making up the next moodboard on perfect outdoor children’s baths - and maybe just stick with the plastic that we’ve got. But! I am getting a hose that connects to an indoor tap - recommendations v welcome.
- *I do think Marilyn was a terrific actress, despite getting repeatedly cast in comedienne roles.
**My friend the photographer Charlotte Bland and I had a running joke for years, sending each other photographs of the most extravagantly ridiculous bathtub contents on Instagram - the ones which were 50:50 slices of blood orange to water were my favourites. Even as someone who frequently chucks a handful of oats in the bath, I cannot imagine bathing in orange slices. I remembered the whole flower petal thing right at the end of the girls baths, and chucked each one a token lavender head - Mia chewed hers, Alba told me to get it out of her bath. Quite right.
**Alba made up an outdoor game after dinner where I was Maria, and she and Mia were both the Baroness. (We’ve graduated from Mary Poppins, and are watching a LOT of The Sound of Music - though I keep turning it off just after the wedding scene so as not to give her nightmares.) Alba insisted I call them both by their titles until bedtime - Mia ended up as ‘Little Baroness’ to differentiate. It’s quite something chasing your children down with a toothbrush, while calling them Baroness.
Thank you so much for reading! It’s too dark for me to take a photograph of the playhouse now, but I will update you on it next week. (Here’s hoping a tulip-mad fox doesn’t move in.) Have a lovely Sunday! Mini xx
Glorious. As always.
Thank you so much for your posts I always look forward to reading them as much as your recipes, which I have always loved -and listening to your podcasts and interviews, and as a mum of twin 3 year-olds and an 8 year-old with special needs, trying to begin a new career, I very much sympathise with the OVERWHELM!
Speaking of which, to keep this short, as I know you're madly busy, would you please be kind enough to share the links for the aforesaid perfect wooden playhouse and accessories and shopping stand?? I'd really appreciate it!
Thank you so much and sending all my best wishes for your endeavours! We're all rooting for you and can't wait to see how it progresses!
Many thanks and warm regards,
Iona