A Short List Of Things Bringing Joie

What I've watched, bought, worn, eaten, read and lusted after this week including love stories, Vinted finds, good balsamic, dupe bags, aspirational spirit levels, cool dresses and hot Danish men.

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Good morning as I write this, I am in the VERY best of moods. There is no real reason for this. In fact, today is the hottest day of the year so far in York so I should really be being massively British and complaining about it. But no. I love the heat. The French doors are open, as is the living room sash window so there is a lovely breeze through the house, Radio 2 is on (don’t judge me, I do turn off when the Vine phone in starts or when they start talking about health issues which is never a good accompaniment to lunch) and I have a cold glass of water in front of me. The animals are keeping cool by lying on their backs doing nothing and yesterday I went to Lidl and bought preprepared cheese and salami for lunch as it’s Spanish Week instore. And as well as that, I have been trying to stop any sort of daytime Marlboro Light vibes and am now on day three of none at all so I am altogether winning at life. To be fair, I was only having a couple of day but even so. It felt like a kind of hanging around post trauma situation after my marriage broke up and now, my friends, I’ve cracked it. YESSS. I’ve actually always been quite good at kicking habits. Apart from husbands, it appears. LOL.

I was due to meet my publisher in London for lunch on Friday but together, we decided that it was just way to hot to travel on the train for a four hour round trip. The older I get, the more I am willing to take the route of least resistance and the concept of sitting for hours on an LNER train during a heatwave holds no appeal. As a result, I have a full week working at home which is actually utter bliss. No make-up required due to excessive heat, although tomorrow night I am going to Grantley Hall with my friend Karen at the invitation of York Races when I will be finding the lightest of my summer dresses to wear. It’s just a short event for a few hours but I have never been to Grantley Hall before and it looks utterly glorious so I will report back.

But back to my List Of Joie and I have lots to tell you about this week, including an excellent curry recipe for people who like a takeaway and some TV recommendations which were particularly good, alongside a few that weren’t. Here’s a little run down of what I’ve watched, bought, worn, read, eaten and lusted after in the last fortnight.