Well, Christmas is well and truly over. It is not a small event in our house, even though our children are grown up and we are ancient! And, it is quite important for our work. We celebrated the New Year as well, and we did another Christmas shoot on the 4th of January!

Then, there is the annual Salmon Festival this weekend in our village, where we thank the salmon for the prosperity they bring us. We make salmon lanterns from willow in the village hall on Saturday and then carry them through the village on Sunday evening before burning them on a fire on the village green on Sunday evening and then have a salmon feast and dance the night away to the Salmon City Blues, our fabulous local Rock n Roll band!

Fun! But from now on, I will be sensible I promise. I have just had three features published this month in the February issues of Ideal Home, 25 Beautiful Homes and Country Homes & Interiors, so I am feeling very upbeat about work and ready to roll up my sleeves and get started on 2024.

I will be covering our beautiful Ideal Home feature, above, about lovely Marie, @storries.scottish.steadings in its own blog post next month.

I have outlined my intentions for 2024 –

1. To find lots of fabulous homes to write about and interesting people to interview. Please get in touch if you can think of anyone suitable - it could be you!

2. Renovate our own house and garden. This is major for me, I am such a home bird, I love to entertain, I do enjoy travelling and eating out and exploring, of course, but home is what it is really all about for me.

3. Continue with my healthy eating plan. I have been on the Human Being Diet by Petronella Ravenshear since April 2023. I have lost 2.5 stone and feel very well on it. It has totally changed my life actually: how I eat, when I eat and what I eat. I think this probably merits a blog post of it’s own as well, I am actually planning to interview Petronella about her kitchen, in Florida, where she has just moved. She is such an interesting woman.

4. Tennis and walking, every day, one or the other, I work from home, I do not need to go out, so this is crucial for me…

5. Trips – London, to see the Chanel exhibition; I want to visit Liverpool with my friend Claudia; hopefully a family ski trip as well, and  I might squeeze in a quick walking holiday in the Alps with Les Joly Dames in the Autumn. More than enough – honestly if I do half of those trips I will be happy! My priority, really, is to renovate our home and then welcome visitors here over the summer.

Here are a few things I learnt in 2023 -

• Make plans – don’t pay too much attention to that saying attributed to John Lennon: ‘life happens while we are making plans’. No it doesn’t! Get planning, in detail.

• Be prepared.

• Just do it.

• Get it in the diary.

• Think but don’t overthink.

• Cook fresh healthy food, it is delicious and good for you.

• Picnic more

• Interviews on video are enjoyable to make and watch, need to make more!

• Just show up – friends are important.

• Make art: I paint, and it is so fun and satisfying, you improve with practice. Paint on paper and in sketch books if space is a problem!

• Work hard

• Enjoy yourself

I have started writing on Substack, a really interesting writer’s platform. You can find me here. I understand that I am legally able to send subscribers emails from Substack as well as from here. I feel very shy about this as I realise you may not wish to here from me quite that often. I am planning to continue with this blog, writing about the interiors features we create for magazines, a little bit behind the scenes, travel, art and all things glossy once a month.

For messier chat, thoughts and feelings I am going to write on Substack. I write a newsletter: what I am reading, watching, listening to, enjoying… and I write about style and identity. It is a little more personal. If you start receiving emails from my Subsatck and you do not want to know the above, you can easily unsubscribe.

There are paid options on Subastack, which I might utilise in the futire, but for the time being, everything I write on there is for free, so please don’t panic if the automated requests for payments come up, currently it will make no difference to your user experience.

So, to sum up -

• In

• Renovating our house

• Painting

• Eating and drinking with friends

• Walking

• Tennis

• TV dramas

• Reading

  Out

• Worrying

• Overworking

Happy New Year!