Unseasonal

Unexpected autumn summers, such as the one we had at the beginning of this month, are amazing, peculiar and weirdly distracting, I find. 

The good weather becomes something that you have to make the absolute most of before it disappears – as though you have to get in as much sun-time as possible before someone notices and switches on the cloud cover.

With this in mind, you come up with work schemes that require park visits and get nothing done, while at the same time, your winter coat, wool scarf and cotton summer dresses are all suddenly hanging on the same rail, lost in some awkward seasonal limbo.

It was weird, but it was also glorious.

 

I took these in Lyme Regis and its surrounding villages on England's south coast – the very same Lyme Regis where Louisa Musgrove falls off the pier in Persuasion and Meryl Streep gets fantastically windswept while falling off the nineteenth-century moral bandwagon in The French Lieutenant's Woman. 

Unfortunately, there were no such fallen women, literal or otherwise, when I visited. Perhaps if I go back in the winter, when the wind is high and the waves are fierce and the tourists are gone, I might see one or two.

An English Summer

'English Summer' sounds so much more promising than 'British Summer', I think. British summers are all too concerned with rain at Wimbledon, rain on your seaside holiday, rain at every wedding you're invited to (invariably held outdoors). It's a bit of a washout.

An English summer, I've come to believe, is something much more rare, but much more promising. It is cream teas and summer puddings and queuing, and being polite to the people you meet on overcrowded beaches on the scorching south coast. Oh, and it is holidaying in Cornwall, which is what I found myself doing for two days last week, in Polruan village, on the end of its own personal peninsula.

There is something about Cornwall holidaying that is very 'make do and mend'. In Cornwall, holidaymakers wear cagoules and walking boots, pay over the odds and take their dogs along with them. There is nothing stylish or glamerous about a Cornwall holiday, but something nostalgic and stoic and traditional instead. People go back to the same place time after time, for no other reason than that that is where they've always gone, and they know who will be there.

I found Polruan and Fowey, further east along the coast, and probably easier to get to for the gasping city populace desperate for some free air, quite different a place to St Ives, which I visited last summer. There was something more sophisticate about St Ives that Polruan and Fowey just don't have: it has a more high-brow history I suppose, that clear bright light, and the Tate Britain there does add some level of gravitas to a certain corner of it. It's interesting that places along the very same coastline can be so very different in their characters.

An unwelcome visitor

Somewhere beautiful does not automatically mean lovely people, it would seem. This at least is my conclusion after a trip to the beautiful village of Bradford on Avon a few days ago.

I've been meaning to pay a visit for months now – it's about an hour away, and fairly well known for being a typically chocolate-box West Country town, and it really is beautiful: stone cottages, thatched roofs, old stone bridges over the river. Despite all of that, the atmosphere was pretty fraught and hostile – especially if you happened to be wandering around with a camera.

Old women pushed past us in the street, muttering audibly, and builders practically chased us off a public side street. There were cars getting in each other's way and clogging up the narrow routes between those high stone walls. To top it all off they were holding a Bradford-on Avon 'Feel Good Festival' in the park, which unfortunately didn't seem to be making much of an impact on the general atmosphere.

All in all, I was an unwelcome visitor, and I was pleased to get home.

Poppies

Most days I commute backwards – I live in the city and drive to the countryside, while all the more conventional workers speed past me in the opposite direction.

Lately I've been driving past these beautiful corn fields, all overrun with poppies, and have been desperate to stop and take photographs. On Saturday, I went back along my commute route and went for a wander through the fields beside the road. We had summer for a day, and I like to take advantage of these things.

I'm delighted with this dress from Mango – I've mentioned before how much I like their recent change of direction and move into a niche I've been desperate for someone to fill for a long time. Their designs are pretty and practical, with clean classic cuts that are cut for the shapely rather than the pre-twenties, as this New York Times article agrees.

My lovely new Thunder in our Hearts tote officially begins its summer service, and announces what I always try to keep in mind when I'm driving along with the rat race on my way to the office.

Country Garden

Driving through the countryside, you peer through the green privacy hedges and elbow your boyfriend in the ribs and say 'hey, look at that one', pointing at another beautiful country mansion, set back from the road, covered with large windows and ivy and architectural curiosities. Then you see a village cricket bowler run towards his batsman, watch the ball hit for six and call the score for the benefit of everyone else in the car, interested or otherwise.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, these hidden houses are open to visitors, and you can drive up and explore their gardens all you like. It's an addiction surprisingly simple to cultivate on a hot spring day with little else to do.

This garden wander was the weekend of the wedding – my royal blue velvet blazer adds a touch of unintended regency I think. It was an outfit I wore all around London too when I went to visit this past weekend. In true royal fashion, it's an outfit that likes to be leisurely both in the city and in the countryside.

Details

As I sat on the floor scrubbing the skirting boards, about an hour or so after Ben had looked at me pityingly to say that on his list of things to clean, the skirting boards were quite far down, I realised that I'm definitely quite obsessed by the little details.

I've mentioned my appreciation of clean lines and subtle detailing before, but I hadn't realised the extent to which it ran. Lately, I've been chasing these geometrics and little details around with my camera, and these pictures are the result. I took them in Ben's parents' house a weekend or so ago (an early seventeenth-century house is full of fine details – beams, uneven walls, tiny doors – it has them all).

Aside from my recent detail fanaticism, a few other things I have been enjoying this past week are this man's skill at photographing people (found via his photographs of a riot that happened nearby this weekend) and this website's free stream of the new Fleet Foxes album, which I find a little too much at times, but perfect at others.

Linen

'I don't really mind where we go, I just like old things.' I said, last Sunday, on the warmest day of the year. We went to Hampton Court Castle, a 15th-century castle within its own gardens – a vista around every corner.

This garden, with its high red brick walls was almost everything a Frances Hodgson Burnett girl might wish for – walls too high to see over and wrought-iron gates – all that was missing was the secrets and the mystery, and a bit of overgrowth. The colossal entrance fee did little to help the mystique along, but old couples sat grumpily drawing on benches, and around every hedge was a different conversation to eavesdrop on.

I came across this dress entirely by surprise in a charity shop a week or so ago. It has been so long since I found anything worthwhile that I'd almost given up trying. It's French linen, and has a very pretty line to it. The wide pleats are perfect.

The label tells me that it comes from Cannes, which conjures film festivals and swishing along promenades and harbours with a little dog and stiletto shoes. As I possess neither, I stick to my gentleman's flats and add a headscarf, and pretend anyway.

Spring Searching

My work schedule is so peculiar these days that I have to squash my weekend into a Thursday. I do this quite cheerfully: the streets are quiet, the cafes are empty and I can just wander around while everyone else is hard at work. The joke's on me of course when I'm working all day on Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday Benjamin and I went on a walk, officially to buy some salt, but ended up wandering the grounds of the church turned concert venue, St George's, and finding, to our surprise, the early shoots of spring.

There are a few churches in Bristol which have been taken over by enterprises more profitable than they – lately I've spotted a church now in a hut adjacent to its former premises (now a gymnastics studio), and another turned into a boxing centre. Sport is the new religion, it would seem.

St George's is the nicest of them all - I saw Owen Pallett play here last year, which was quite a magical experience. Inside, the ceilings are high and the acoustics are something special.

So, while spring springs out of miserable February, I'll be working hard on a very large book. When I'm finished, perhaps it will be springtime proper, and time for something different.

Country Living

When Ben's parents go on holiday, their house more often than not becomes a little country retreat for him and me. We have roaring fires, bake cakes, make soup, watch films and read books and generally pretend that we're on holiday too, which is what we did this weekend. It's a perfect way to disappear from your own life and gear up for what you have to do when you return to it.

The house is a perfect English seventeenth-century museum piece, with hidden rooms in unexpected places, dark beams, tiny doorways to duck under and mysterious windows. It's not a house for the tall (me) but it is very characterful. When we were taking these photographs, an unwelcome chicken appeared in the garden to root up the lawn, which prompted a strategic chicken chase to coerce it back to its own.

Recently it has been getting slightly warmer, and, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been overly optimistic and started spring clothes hunting already. I justify it by reasoning that I can never find what I want when I'm actually looking, so if I see something I want when I'm not looking, I really ought to buy it. Ridiculous, but there we are.

The dress is a great cut – a wide waistband and just the right amount of flare. The bag is one I have on long term loan from Ben's mother – his dad bought it for her in Florence, and she doesn't use it, so I've been making the most of it. The soup was a very delicious Ben creation.

Tonight we are back in the city, armed with a haggis and a bottle of whisky to celebrate Burn's Night, just as any self-respecting Scottish girl ought to be. I actually really like haggis, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

Dress: Topshop
Bag: Borrowed

Clevedon

An old English Victorian seaside town out of season, Clevedon in December is far more beautiful than it is in July. No tourists with ice cream cones buying expensive lunches in seafront locations and fighting over the outside seats – in December the sea is calm, the anglers are watchful and the sea mist swirls around and makes an atmosphere out of it all.

The pier is Clevedon's jewel. John Betjeman called it 'the most beautiful pier in England' and it must be – its long spindly legs create such delicate arches. The wet beams are recycled railway sleepers, paid for by tiny brass plaques inset into the wood and engraved with the names of the people who bought them. The glorious pavilion at the end is quiet now, but becomes a seaside cafe in the summer. I realised when I was there, that this is the pier that is used in the publicity posters for 'Never Let Me Go', the new Keira Knightley film.

When Ben and I strolled along it, the pier was completely deserted bar the quiet anglers with their bowed heads. It was pouring with rain and the mist was rolling in. I felt like my 1940s coat deserved an attempt at 1940s hair, which I quite like I think – It's nice to have a fringe break now and again. The coat I bought in a charity shop – it's heavy and the cut is perfect for me – it feels very grand.

Coat: Vintage 1940s
Leather gloves: Vintage
Tights: H&M
Shoes: Topshop

Craft Fair

Among the fiddly porcelain, shelves of teapots, and precariously balanced jewelery there was not a great deal of room for a video camera and a tripod, but last weekend Benjamin and I ploughed in regardless. We were very much in the way.

Benjamin was filming one of his interviewees for a project at Hereford Craft Fair. The interviewee was a potter named Jewels, who makes tiny sea-inspired pottery sets after just doing an evening class at the local college. Late learning is in the family – her 75-year-old mother is studying for a PhD in older people's attitudes to death. She sounds fascinating – I'd love to meet her.

As I hate being in the way above all things, I drifted around with the crowd, taking photographs and chatting to some of the stall holders. It was surprisingly busy. It's amazing and brilliant that the most popular designs were the simplest and the most old fashioned, and that people were still snapping them up despite the modern age of austerity, and the availability of cheap china from the east, and Ikea.

I got talking to a potter who looked more like a 1960s bank manager than an artist. He had in fact spent the 1960s studying pottery, which he left for large scale manufacturing. He only came back to potting a few years ago, and had just sold an entire £1,500 dinner set on commission: 'The woman who bought it didn't even blink at the price', he told me.

This weekend, in the middle of another fruitless Bristol shopping trip, I cheered myself up with this fantastically long wool scarf from Zara. I love how thick the wool is, and how many times I can wrap it around. If you add a topknot (my hair's default setting at the moment) it is a really satisfying one too.

Scarf: Zara
Cardigan: H&M
Skirt: Zara
Boots & Bag: Vintage

A Tourist at Home

Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist in your own city. I'm the kind of tourist who tries to blend in with whatever place I'm visiting in order to see the real place, not the manufactured directed version that you are fed as a slavish tourist. The hardest part about trying to fit in in a place that you have never been before is not getting lost, so being a tourist in the city that you already know is easy.

So, in true Bristol tourism style, here is Clifton Suspension Bridge and its surroundings in the late autumn sunshine. It's an almost impossible structure, built in the mid-nineteenth century across the deep Avon Gorge, which itself has seen more than its fair share of people jumping to their deaths from the bridge above. The best tale of this bridge that I have heard is that of Sarah Ann Henley, who, intent on ending her life in 1885, threw herself off it only to be buoyed up by her many petticoats, which acted as a parachute and saved her life, guiding her down gently. She lived into her eighties.

I was tempted to wear something voluminous in her honour, but settled for this instead, my vintage Betty Barclay autumn dress. Its length would make it a great summer dress, were it not for the long sleeves. They are too warm for summer and too cold for winter, but perfect for sunny autumn evenings like this. I like that it is cut in a classic shape in a classic colour but that the camel is broken up by the flashes of fushia in the wings of the birds. I bought it in Camden Market in London, which happens in fact to be the place most often thought of by Londoners as a horrible tourist nightmare – I do still go, though.

Dress: vintage Betty Barclay
Cardigan: Topshop
Tights: M&S
Shoes: Long Tall Sally