If you're looking for a new daily blog fix, my friend Lauren is going to be blogging every day of Advent to raise money for Syrian refugees, and giving away some pretty amazing prizes in the process (including a two-hour photo shoot with her.) You might see me popping up over there too. Go, join the fun.

Image from Nasty Girl August Lookbook, photographed by Paul Trapani and styled by Ashley Glorioso via Spell

Dear Santa,

This Christmas, I would like:

1. To get a good night's sleep.

2. To look and feel vaguely presentable, bearing in mind that my definition of "vaguely presentable" has relaxed considerably since the time you brought me those pink GHDs.

3. To accept that I am old and boring and that all I really want to do is curl up with a good book and a packet of biscuits.

To that end, I would not cry if any of the following made their way into my stocking.

Gorgeous photography! Great design! DOGS WEARING CLOTHES!

It's like they invented it just for me.

Meet Houndworthy, for all your quality hipster dog goods. Need an on-trend geometric collar and matching lead? Of course you do. Need a distressed canvas vintage French postal dog bed? Mais oui. Need a white 100% cotton doggie bandana decorated with painted fish flies? Um, yes, you do. IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?

I'm not joking with this. I know it can be hard to tell.

Smidgen, if you weren't getting a disgusting chunk of meat for your Christmas, and I had a spare several hundred pounds, you would be getting everything that Houndworthy has to offer. I declare it officially worthy of my hound.

SEE ALSO:

→ A dog wearing antlers looking happy
→ Dogs dressed as Santa looking miserable
→ Smidgen totally needs a new jacket. I mean, she only has two.

All images via Houndworthy. Not a sponsored post, I just like to imagine I have the kind of life where I can spend all my money making Smidgen look even cooler than she already does.

A frock fit for that winter wedding I never had, maybe?

PREVIOUS IMAGINARY WEDDING OUTFITS:

What is that makes a place feel like home? Fin and I lived in our last flat for nearly three years, but we never felt as comfortable there as we do where we are now. On paper - and who am I kidding, in reality - the last flat was much nicer. It was newer, it was bigger, it was comfier. It had two bathrooms and neither of them had a beige bathroom suite, which is more than I can say for our current flat. Being inside our bathroom now is like being inside a biscuit.

So why do we feel so at home here? The location is better, I'll give it that. The city centre is easily walkable and there's a huge, wild-ish park right on our doorstep. We're right at the cul of a little leafy sac, so it's always quiet. It's the most peaceful spot I've ever found in this moderately bustling city. I don't know if that's it, though.

We've somehow managed to make this place feel more ours. Like the last flat, this one's furnished with someone else's crap cast-off furniture, but unlike the last flat, none of it's lilac. Is there a worse colour than lilac? I don't know if there is. Maybe chartreuse, but it's a close one. (Here's proof, if proof were needed, that lilac couches are a Very Bad Thing).

Our living room now is filled with warm colours, layered patterns, natural textures, candles, wood. The artwork on the wall is there because we love it or it means something, not just because it happens to have lilac in it. It has carpets on which Smidgen and Eeyore can do their crazy dance instead of skiting across shiny, dust-gathering laminate.

It's just comfy. It feels like us. It feels right.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It's small and weirdly shaped and the bathroom really is hideous. I would never buy this flat (or the one currently for sale downstairs), much as I love where we are. But I don't know if I'd buy somewhere else, either.

Someone asked me the other day, if we had the money, would we buy a home of our own. My honest answer is that I don't know. The thought of moving again gives me the chills, and not in a good way, but I don't think it's just laziness that makes me hesitate.

When it comes down to it, I don't think my feelings have changed much since I wrote this post back in 2011. Buying property just doesn't look like everything it's cracked up to be, especially since I've seen friends unable to sell those starter flats that seemed like such a good idea a few years ago. And now that I've figured out how easy it is to make your walls look pretty with some wrapping paper and a cheap frame, I care even less about my ability to paint the walls a crazy colour. (Seriously, Cavallini gift wrap looks so good in this Ikea frame that I've started hanging one in every room. Top tip.)

Sure, it would be lovely to have somewhere we could call our own. In my dream world, it would probably look something like that picture up there, and it would be on a hillside with a burn bubbling past, and we would have a pet alpaca called Jorge, but do I need that to feel happy? Do I need it to feel comfortable? Do I need it to feel like I'm home?

I don't think I do.

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Image of Emma Campbell's Kenyan home shot for The World of Interiors April 2012

It's exactly one month until Christmas and I'm trying to resist the temptation to marvel at the passage of time. I usually prefer to wait until December before I really go completely bonkers, but there's no harm in laying the groundwork a bit early. The 25th of November is a perfectly respectable date to start planning ahead for some festive cheer.

When it comes to heralding the coming of Christmas, I'm a traditionalist. Don't even talk to me about Starbucks red cups. It's a miracle of modern marketing that drinking an overpriced coffee from a disposable cup sold by a tax-avoiding mega-corporation has somehow come to embody the season for a worryingly large segment of the population.

(Top tip: if you want a wintery hot drink that actually tastes nice, forget the pumpkin spice crap and try the Scots pine and smoked salt hot chocolate that Urban Angel are serving up at the St Andrew Square Scottish market, or have a hot toddy from the Royal Dick instead. Delicioso.)

If it takes more than a Christmas-themed beverage to get you in the mood, here are three things you can plan right now that will have you feeling more festive than a dog in a Santa hat come December, according to this fool-proof formula: doing something fun + helping other people = warm fuzzy Christmas glow.

1. Buy a tree + help the homeless

We've been buying our Christmas tree from Caring Christmas Trees for years and would never buy it from anywhere else. The quality is lovely, you can pick it up at a time that suits you, and the profits go to a wonderful cause.

The trees aren't cheap, but guess what? CHRISTMAS TREES ARE EXPENSIVE. One year, we thought it would be cheaper to buy our tree from one of the slightly dodgy-looking roadside sellers, which sold trees by the foot. It ended up costing exactly the same, the quality was rubbish, and the money went straight into someone's pocket instead of going towards helping Edinburgh's homeless. Where's the Christmas cheer in that?

If you live in Aberdeen, Dumfries, Dundee, Perth, Edinburgh, East Lothian, Fife, Glasgow or South East London, I can't recommend Caring Christmas Trees enough. We've volunteered as tree distributors with them for several years, so here's a little inside info: most of the trees are a good 6-10 inches taller than they say they will be. If you're torn between two sizes, go for the smaller one. You'll get extra height for your buck (except with the 4 foot trees, but what they lack in height they make up for in girth, being practically spherical). You have to order in advance, so buy your tree now.

2. Learn a new skill + support independent businesses

Those of you on the East coast can join in the fun with Pyrus, run by creative geniuses Fiona and Natalya. They have classes on various dates in December, held in gorgeous venues in Edinburgh and East Lothian, where you can learn to make wreaths and garlands and even go out and pick your own foliage. Full details and booking information here.

3. Sing carols + help people with breast cancer

I love carols. Love love love them. The one sad thing about getting married in July was that we couldn't have 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing' and 'O Come All Ye Faithful' as our wedding hymns. Apparently it's a bit weird to want Christmas carols at your summer wedding. Whatevs.

To compensate for this tragedy I try to sing carols at every possible opportunity, so obviously I had to buy tickets for Carols by Candlelight at St John's Cathedral in support of Breast Cancer Care. If there's one thing I love nearly as much as carols, it's candles, and if there's one thing I love more than either of those things, it's supporting people affected by breast cancer. Done deal.

Londoners, fret not - there's a carol concert for you, too. Breast Cancer Care are also holding a carol concert at St Paul's Cathedral, and they've only gone and got Simon bloody Callow to do a reading. I'm totally not jealous, though. Not even a little bit.


So, there you go. Three easy ways to get into the Christmas spirit. I'm interested, what is it that triggers that festive feeling for you?  The John Lewis Christmas advert? Your first glass of mulled wine? The compulsory appearance of sparkly dresses in every shop window? Please don't say the red cups.

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Image: Ling Design charity Christmas cards, £2.99 for 6 from John Lewis (bonus points if you noticed the Christmas tree, the wreath, the carol singers and the dog in a Santa hat).

Last month, I signed up for a hand-lettering class on Skillshare. I'll never be an artist, but I secretly love drawing and it seemed like a good opportunity to exercise a different part of my brain.

The first step of the project was to choose a phrase or quote to draw. This step took me approximately one million years. I couldn't think of a single thing I liked enough to commit to paper.

Eventually I grew frustrated with my paralysing inability to make even the most minor decision and told myself to just fucking write something. So the phrase I decided on was "Just fucking write something." Naturally.


Today, I wanted to share my final, beautiful, hand-drawn phrase with you. Except, inevitably, I haven't fucking finished it. I powered through the next few steps of the project (you can see my half-arsed attempt here, if you like) then came to a sputtering stop.

Clearly, I should have picked "Just fucking draw something" instead.

SEE ALSO:

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So, Paris. We went, we came back. It was good.

After audience testing revealed an overwhelmingly negative response to 2013's working title, 2013: Worst Year Ever, I've decided to rename it 2013: The Year of Netflix. Because when I haven't been whining about how it's been the worst year ever, I've been watching a scandalous amount of television to make my mind off how it's been the worst year ever. As you can see, it's been working really well.

After nearly a year of practising this questionable avoidance technique, I now consider myself something of an expert in consuming mindless, repetitive hours of American TV. If you'd like to become an expert too, here's how.

1. Get hooked up

2. Become an American

3. Watch all the things

Apparently, cosy knitted snoods are so in right now. I don't like to blow my own fashion trumpet, but I was ALL OVER this trend two years ago. Not only did I knit a snood for myself, I also knitted one for Smidgen, because I am a crazy dog lady. I then knitted a second one for myself, in softest pink, but Smidgen ate it. I tried not to take it personally.

Anyway, the fashion world has finally caught up with Smidgen and me, and the internet is rife with snoods. The best thing about the snood trend is that it's a zero effort trend, which is my favourite type of trend. You don't even have to go through the tiresome process of wrapping it around your neck with your arms, ugh, scarves are so exhausting. Snoods are also warm and endlessly practical in these chilly climes, for which the back of my neck is profoundly grateful (#shorthairproblems).

My beloved chunky grey snood is practically glued to my body at the moment, but if I was inclined to purchase a new one to add to my rotation, it might be this colourful number by Donna Wilson.


The big question is, which colour? (And do I need the matching mittens?)


What winter warmers have you got your eye on? Gimme your knitwear porn.

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I don't write much about current affairs on this here blog of mine. There are precisely seven posts discussing the events of the day, and of those, two are about hair, two are about the Royal Wedding, and one is about whether an independent Scotland would have a separate Eurovision entry. Hard-hitting stuff.

A couple of people I know and respect, both online and offline, have recently stopped reading all but the occasional story from the mainstream news media. Not because they don't care what happens in the world - far from it - but for personal, thoughtful reasons that make a lot of sense to me.

There are plenty of arguments in favour of being aware of what's going on around us. It helps us to participate fully in society, and expands our understanding of the world we live in. Sometimes a story is more than just a story and compels us to act: to vote in a critical election, or offer aid in times of crisis. The news informs us, educates us, broadens our horizons.

But there's a dark side to news, too. The ill-informed malice spewed forth in comments on news articles. The blatant bias, and - worse - the stealthy pushing of partisan agendas under the cover of respectable impartiality. The obsession with tragedy and horror, the need to report in infinite detail on horrendous events that, really, teach us nothing other than that the world for many is a hard and hostile place, and people can be really bloody awful. Do I need to know that some poor mad woman has murdered her children? Will it do anything other than depress me?

I don't know the answer. What do you think?


P.S. As if to prove that the news isn't all bad, while I was writing this post I found a link to this picture from the Guardian picture desk of a newborn Kirk's dik dik antelope, which is being hand-reared by keepers at Chester Zoo. It is without doubt the most adorable thing you will see all day. You're welcome.


French bulldog by Denise Fiedler

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Am I the only one who finds budgeting incredibly soothing?




*Deafening silence*


Fine. But you should know that this budgeting app is the best thing ever, and if you had it, you'd find it soothing too. And if you don't think budgeting could possibly be relaxing, try paying off your credit card (or, erm, one of them) thanks to said budgeting app. Now THAT is relaxing.

If you'll excuse me, I have some accounts to reconcile and I'm genuinely excited about it.

I think I may have a problem.

SEE ALSO:

Vintage calculator prints by Justin Skeesuck. Use this link to sign up for YNAB and get $6 off. Don't say I'm not good to you.

Je m'appelle Kirsty. J'ai quatorze ans. J'habite à North Berwick en Ecosse.

Do you ever get sick of reading blogs that are nothing but round-ups and mood boards and wish lists and sponsored posts and no actual content whatsoever?

Yeah. Me too.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good-looking blog as much as the next girl (and I'm no stranger to a mood board), but sometimes what I really want is a well-written insight into someone's life. I want a sense of what makes them tick, what makes them laugh, what keeps them awake at night. I want to know who they are, and I want who they are to be witty and bright and quirky. I want them to tell me their story.

Essentially, I want to read the kind of thing I try to write here, but way better.

That kind of blog seems to have dropped out of fashion of late, in favour of the fluffy sponsored crap referred to above (must capitalism ruin everything?), but fortunately I know where to find the good stuff. Turns out they were all hiding in America.

Another Damn Life

How to Live in Ohio on Purpose

I followed Evie on Twitter for a long time before I realised she had a blog.  I'm on record as saying that if the only two people I followed on Twitter were Lyn and Evie (who follow each other and often engage in hilarious back-and-forth), I would probably enjoy Twitter about a million percent more. Evie's tweets delight me: an addictive mix of sharp observations, awkward confessions and bone-dry humour that gets me in all the right places.

I hoped her blog might be like a long-form version of her tweets. It is not. It's so much better than that.

How to Live in Ohio on Purpose is an excellent name for a blog and just an excellent blog all round. It's not really about anything, as such, but Evie draws you into her world so skilfully that you don't even notice. It's just... lovely. Like this post, about running (except it's not really about running, it's about life, but Evie is so sneaky that you don't even notice until the end and then you're like ohhhh. Also it's a little bit about pizza, which is one of my favourite topics).

Evie also shares my make-them-laugh-while-providing-no-practical-advice-whatsoever approach to How To posts, which makes me like her even more. Practical schmactical.

Update: Evie has moved her blog to a new location - you can find her at Oh Evie. She also sends out a weekly newsletter which you can (and SHOULD) subscribe to here.

Nothing But Bonfires

Let's just get the obvious out of the way first, shall we? Holly who writes Nothing But Bonfires is a stone-cold fox. I mean, ridiculously good-looking. She also had the most stylish wedding ever to the love of her life, has a gorgeous home, a high-flying creative job and a glamorous international past, and recently gave birth to an adorable child. I should probably hate her.

But I don't, because (a) she writes about it all with such warmth and humour, and (b) she posts terrible pictures of her teenage self to make us all feel better.

I have now officially run out of steam with this post (told you I was bad at writing these) so I will just say that someone once told me that A Safe Mooring was like the British Nothing But Bonfires, which made very little sense since Holly is in fact British herself, but nevertheless it made me want to kiss that person on the mouth.

There you have it, a few of my favourite blogs. Care to share yours?

MORE BLOGS I LOVE:

Images: 1. Erin Hearts Court 2. Lauren McGlynn 3. From Evie's blog 4. Sean Slinsky

Yesterday, somewhat abruptly, Fin became an uncle. His nephew came 9 weeks early and gave us all a fright. Weighing in at just three and a half pounds, he's a teeny scrap of a thing, with a difficult journey ahead of him. But he's here. He is so loved. He's being given every ounce of care and support that can possibly be given.

Today's topic for the Blog Every Day in November project is "workspace". I had a vague idea to share inspirational pictures of my fantasy working environment: a creative, collaborative space, notable for its excessive amount of windows and abundance of hot pink. The kind of place I could waft around wearing cool outfits and doing unspecified creative things that mysteriously paid me lots of money.

Oh, hello, Perspective. Thanks for stopping by.

Instead of waxing lyrical about some imaginary other life, I'd like to say a very real thank you to the midwives and doctors and nurses (including my amazing sister-in-law) who work tirelessly to bring new lives safely into this world. Thank you for taking care of my other amazing sister-in-law, and thank you for making it physically impossible not to cry at every single episode of One Born Every Minute, damn you.

Welcome to the family, little one. Your auntie and uncle are rooting for you.


Maternity ward in Essen, 1960, by Simon Müller via Wikipedia Commons, courtesy of the German Federal Archive

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If you know anything about Edinburgh, you know it has literature in its soul. What you may not know is that it also has literature in its masonry.

Here are three places in Edinburgh where words have leapt off the page and into the world, listed in ascending order of obscurity.

1. Canongate Wall

2. Makars' Court

3. A random office building

This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.

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A few years ago a friend of mine threw a fancy dress party, the theme of which was "dress up as what you wanted to be when you grew up." Most of us at the party were lawyers. Funnily enough, nobody was dressed as one.

It's been a while since my dogs wearing clothes tag saw any action. Obviously I had to remedy that immediately.

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Image: "Tommy Atkins" (appropriately enough) via the Library of Congress. See the whole bizarre series on Shooting Film

1. You cannot read everything. Stop trying.

This time last year, life was pretty much exactly the same as it is now. I was living in the same flat, walking to the same office, sitting in the same ergonomic chair for eight hours a day. Today, it all feels so settled, so normal, so nothing-to-see-here. Last year, I was reeling. I'd lived in three different flats in the space of a month, my belongings scattered across Edinburgh like shrapnel, and I had just returned to work after three hectic months of moonlighting as an intern for Breast Cancer Care.

My day would start on the 8.37 train to Glasgow. I took the scenic train, the slightly longer one, because it took me directly where I needed to go without having to deal with barriers or lifts or platforms or commuters or tickets. I'm not good in the mornings.

People always say, when they're trying to sell internships, that every day is different. I probably ought to say that, too, but the truth is most days were the same. In many ways, it resembled my job as a lawyer, at least on the face of it. There were differences, of course: the technology wasn't as fancy; the office chairs were pink; I didn't need to record my time every minute of every day (blessed relief); the team meetings all involved cake. I was still sitting at a computer all day, though. I still organised things, recorded information, cajoled and persuaded people. I chatted and joked with the women sitting around me (and they were all women), asked them about their weekends, got to know them and like them and admire them greatly. It felt like any other job. Work is work, whether it's paid or not.

That's one thing that I found interesting about the whole experience, actually. It turns out that salary, or the lack thereof, holds very little interest for me. I was no less motivated as an unpaid intern than I am in my overpaid job as a stuffed shirt. I tried just as hard, cared just as much, took it every bit as seriously (which isn't always very seriously at all). I don't think it was the idea that I was "doing good" that motivated me, either; most of the time, it was difficult to quantify what good I was doing, if any.

To be a good fundraiser, you need to be a person who thrives on targets. You need to see totals inching up on a whiteboard and want nothing more than to smash last year's total, or blow this year's budget out of the water. I am not that kind of person.

If I learned anything from the experience, it's that fundraising does not and never will come naturally to me, and that's ok. I have other talents. I can find the best place to bulk-order pink heart-shaped sunglasses and feather boas. I can write letters to law firms, highlighting an obscure provision in the solicitors' accounts rules that lets them give stranded cash to charity and suggesting they might like to give it to us. I can work an event for 19 hours straight, directing and setting up and taking down and generally getting shit done, and I can do it with a horrible infection and a smile on my face. I'm a doer, not a blagger, and I'm glad I had the chance to find that out.

While "doing good" wasn't a daily motivation for me, it was, of course, a huge part of the reason I took up the internship in the first place. I've written before about Breast Cancer Care and the work they've done in raising awareness of, and supporting people living with, secondary breast cancer. They're still leading the way on it (this handy guide on what not to say to someone whose cancer has spread is just perfect). They've also, somewhat controversially, changed their primary colour from pink to orange. Given my ambivalence towards pink, naturally I'm completely on board. It's a fantastic organisation, run by wonderful, talented people, and it was a privilege to give them my time.

Of course, my interest wasn't just charitable. It was personal. I applied for the internship the day after I found out my mum's cancer had spread further. An unsurprising reaction, if an extreme one. It was an attempt to counteract my helplessness and take control of an overwhelming situation.

One year on, how do I feel? Helpless. Overwhelmed. Out of control. Some things, you simply cannot change.

My day would end back on the train, nestled in a corner, more often than not with a book in my lap, more often than not asleep as the train jostled through the countryside. Commuting is hard. Shaking collection buckets is hard. Making ends meet when you've given up getting paid for three months is hard.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

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Image: Christina Winkelmann for ban.do

1. She only has one name.

Most racing greyhounds have two names, a racing name and a pet name (I met one recently whose pet name is Steve, which is probably the best name for a dog I've ever heard in my life), but Smidgen has just been Smidgen her whole life. I think they knew from the start that competitive racing would never be her strong point. Of course, as an international greyhound of mystery, she has many aliases, including Smidgers, Little Smidge, Smidger McGidger, Smidgeroo, Smidgester, McGidge and Midgen (this last one coined by my adorable Chinese sister-in-law and only ever said in a Mandarin accent).

2. She has the sleep pattern of a pubescent boy. 

She sleeps all the time. ALL THE TIME. On the couch, on the rug, in her bed, in Isla's bed, on our bed, in the car, on a person, on a pile of dirty washing, on a pile of books, lying down, sitting up, on her side, on her back, legs curled up, legs sticking up like prongs, eyes open, mouth open, perfectly still, twitching madly after dream rabbits, barking, puffing, whining, always completely, 100% asleep.

3. She has a bald bum.

4. She's not well-trained.

5. She's a cold-blooded killer.

6. But she's also a big softy.

7. She's picky.

8. She is, however, surprisingly comforting.

9. She isn't really a rescue dog.

10. Today is a very special day.

Exactly four years ago today, Smidgen was born. Exactly two years ago - on her second birthday - she came to live with us.

Happy birthday, Smidgers. I'm honoured that you've decided I'm worthy of your affection, even if you mostly like me because I let you sneak into our bed in the morning and leave expensive chocolates lying around for you to eat. I promise not to make you wear a hat this year.

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All images by me for Daily Smidgen