In January 2021, I set up my lockdown side hustle – @LLGFOUND, selling beautiful antique and vintage china, homewares, furniture, paintings and studio pottery. It’s been *quite* the experience. I’ve always loved both telling stories, and wondering about the stories behind the people I meet, and the objects I come across. Truly, there is a story in everything and everyone if you just take the time to think or ask. That’s why I have always had a thing for antiques, and for what we now call vintage. (Although for a lot of us vintage simply means the things with which we grew up.) I love to think ..read more

THIS IS A PAID PARTNERSHIP IN ASSOCIATION WITH ISTITUTO MARANGONI As we head towards the eighth month of restricted movement here in the United Kingdom, I’m sure I’m not the only person who has been looking at their home with a forensic eye. I’ve always been interested by interior design, both at home and as a lifestyle writer, but being confined to quarters for several months in lockdown, and spending so much time working from home since then, has made me really reassess both how I use the space in which I live, and the value of the objects within that space. There is so much to dis ..read more

THIS IS A PAID POST IN ASSOCIATION WITH TEMPUR®  Yes, this is me lying down on a COVID-19 secure bed whilst testing out the most comfortable mattresses I’ve lain on in a long time in an actual shop. (As opposed to clicking online, as has been my wont since mid-March.) Whilst specific lockdown measures still apply in certain parts of the UK, in London we are allowed to go into shops with no restriction on the type of retailer we visit – August 2020, at time of writing. Of course, it’s still a process – masks are required (unless exempt), and hand sanitiser upon entry is a must. For me, I ..read more

My London garden was designed as an indoor/outdoor space: with two doors, one off the sitting room, and one off the kitchen, and wide windows; in the summer it was easy to make the garden an extension of the house. There’s no lawn, just a patchwork of cracked flagstones which, however much I power-wash them each Easter when the weather warms up, are still fairly grim. So my solution was to buy hard-wearing polypropylene rugs to spread over the areas not covered by the outdoor tables, chairs and sofas. I found mine in IKEA (a simple woven navy one), and in Carpetright (an attractive cream and ..read more

Now that the lockdown is over bar the shouting, I have stopped posting my coronavirus lockdown diary, which ended on day 100, and will instead be posting general diary entries every few days, or so. On Sunday my mother drove down very early – she had originally planned to come down on Saturday but we pointed out that, as it was the first day that the pubs were opened after three months of lockdown, that it might not be sensible to be on the roads. It was also the first time that people were allowed to stay overnight in someone else’s home, within certain restrictions, of course. My big plan ..read more

I last had my haircut on my birthday at the beginning of December last year. My colour? I can’t quite remember but I think it was a press appointment at lovely Jo Hansford in Mayfair back in the summer.  I only ever have a half head of highlights but what become increasingly visible during lockdown was the most monumental streak of silver running from my right temple. I don’t mind it so much, because both my mother and my sister have the same streak and I like that quirk of genetics, but it didn’t blend very well with my darker roots. And what I do really mind is having frizzy ..read more

I wish that I could say that day 100 of lockdown was momentous in some way but there was little to differentiate it from the previous ninety-nine…apart from seeing several friends, instead of none as at the end of March. In essence this was another day that didn’t go quite as planned… I was supposed to go swimming with Amanda at the reservoir this morning but I didn’t fall asleep ‘till 3 am last night, and my throat is still slightly swollen. This seems like a bad combination when plunging into cold water without a wet suit so I pulled a rain check on today’s outing. I feel bad it but I think ..read more

With limbs naturally the colour of skimmed milk, I’ve always been a big, big fan of gradual tanners, from Garnier’s game-changer years ago, which I swore by when I worked at Vogue House, to the plethora of options that now sit in my bathroom. Whilst I will go for the fully Monty with mousse and mitt when I want a deeper colour, the gradual tanners do avoid the streaky towels and linen issue, as well as streaky legs.  That being said, not all gradual tanners are created equal. Don’t go thinking they are infallible because they are imparting less colour: they still need to be carefully ..read more

Once upon a time we’d have been looking at a choice between lace triangles and crop tops but, thankfully for those of us who have been given more than a pair of bee stings up top, there is now a wide range of options for a comfortable bra to wear at home Having had ginormous bosoms for most of my adult life, it was an extraordinary revelation post my breast reduction surgery five years ago to discover the joy of the soft bra. To put this into perspective, pre-op I wore an underwired bra not just every day, but to bed every single night of my adult life. But you cannot wear underwear bras at a ..read more

When I woke up on a February morning last year in my lovely minimalist room at The Hoxton Paris to discover Paris blanketed in snow, I first drank a lot of coffee (internal central heating) and consumed a vast amount of heavily buttered baguette (fuel), before slipping and sliding off to the 1eme to experience Paris in a white out. None of these photographs were shot in black and white, or post-processed: it was simple as if Paris had become monochrome overnight. I’ve not run these images on here on LLG before, but I thought this was an opportune moment, given that no one outside of France ..read more