Today, I had the pleasure of doling out advice to an Alabama couple planning an Edinburgh elopement, for East Side Bride. I've waxed lyrical about my love for ESB before, so I won't bang on about it. Suffice to say, she's ace, I'm honoured, my post kind of ended up being about five million words long.

If you'd like to read my recommendations for a low-key, hipster elopement to Edinburgh (and let's face it, who wouldn't), I'd encourage you to go and read my post right now. And if you know of any other top secret, badass venues hidden away down Edinburgh's back lanes, I'd love to hear about them. The current ratio of country houses to murder-ridden caves in the Scottish wedding media is just not good enough.


P.S. If you're visiting here from ESB for the first time, I should probably plug the wedding stuff. But truthfully, I think you might prefer the posts filed under 'Don't be a dick'.


Image: shot by David Wickham and styled by Bijou Bride for Vogue Italia, via Love My Dress. I like to imagine this is how our Alabama bride will emerge from her plane upon arrival at Turnhouse. Totally feasible.

I mean, come on. There's got to be a market for this in Edinburgh, surely? And it's for charity! Any photographers want to get in on this? Anybody? No...?

For more styled dog portraits than you can shake a giant glittery bow at, there's a whole freaking category on A House in the Hills. I practically wept with joy.



Images from Fancy Paws created by Smitten Studio, Birds of a Feather and A House in the Hills, a.k.a. MY HEROES.

And we're off again. This time up to the frozen north for a few days, where I will almost certainly be striking poses in designer skiwear and prancing around in the snow on ponies. Because that's just what people do in Aviemore.

My family has a timeshare up there, a little two-roomed flat with bunkbeds and a pull-out couch. It's far from glamorous, but it's close to my heart. We've been going there since I was little. I remember one year, my dad built us an igloo beside the car park. It suspect it was more for him than for us.

For a few years I stopped going, bored of the long drive up the A9 and the unpredictable Scottish weather. But Fin and I started going up there together when he was learning to ski, and it's become something of a spring tradition.

One of my favourite things about having a timeshare is the year-on-year comparison. Every year, for these same two weeks in March, the little flat is ours. Some years the hills are white, their edges smudged against a flat grey sky. Some years are spent huddled on the couch watching the rain drum against the windows. Last year, we had glorious sunshine. We ate sandwiches on benches and lay on a beach, shivering slightly, in the way only the British can. The year before that, there was too much snow to ski.

Right now, it's -5°C and snowing. That has to mean we're due glorious sunshine next year, right? Maybe?


Happy weekend, folks.


Images: 1&4 Free People November 2012 via Fashion Gone Rogue, 2&3 Koray Birand for Vogue Spain Joyas via Design Scene

But alas, I am no longer in France. It's time to say au revoir to delicious meaty salads, and bonjour to being a végétarienne. Sort of.

Fin and I have decided to try and eat meat-free from Monday to Friday. We'll still eat fish, and we'll still eat meat at the weekend if we feel like it, or if we're eating out (which doesn't happen as often as we'd like, thanks to a certain small, hairy member of our household who really cramps our style when it comes to dining in restaurants). So, not really vegetarian at all. More part-time-pescatarian. But at least we're trying.

I have to apologise. I realised last week, when I wrote about my mum having chemo many years ago, that I haven’t been keeping you in the loop. In fact, I haven’t really given you any update at all since we had bad news last April. So in return for all of your kindness about the new blog design, here is, erm, a nice depressing post about cancer. My thank you notes really leave something to be desired, don't they? Sorry. At least the pictures are pretty.





Last year came and went. There was treatment, there were scans. My mum lost her hair for the third time in her life. I sought some meaning and purpose in all this mess by swapping work for volunteering for a while. Slowly, very slowly, the hair grew back. The scans proved hopeful. We breathed out.

Then on Christmas Eve, of all days, I got a call to tell me she was in hospital with the same symptoms that had us worried last time. Thankfully she wasn't kept overnight into Christmas Day, and it turns out the side effects of steroids (eating constantly, putting on weight) are exactly the same as the side effects of Christmas, so no problems there.


The new year came, and with it a new treatment plan. More chemo. Hurrah. In an exciting new twist, this stuff doesn't make you bald, but it does leave your mouth bubbling with blisters and your feet in perpetual cramping agony, which is quite enough to be getting on with thank you very much.

And here we are still. Chemo, blisters, waiting, caring, hoping.


It’s funny how it gets both easier and harder to deal with bad news. Easier, because you've been through it before and know roughly what to expect. Harder, for the same reasons.

This time around, I've decided to cope by burying myself in creative projects. As well as the blog makeover, I designed and styled a display for my friend Lauren at the Glasgow Wedding Collective fair a couple of weeks ago, and in return she took these beautiful pictures of me with my mum and aunt. I can't thank her enough.

(Pictures of her stand in all its woody, scrabbly, flowery glory coming soon, because I know you're waiting with baited breath.)





And even more exciting than blog makeovers and pretty flowers, Fin and I are going on holiday tomorrow. TOMORROW. I can't wait. It's been a hard start to 2013 in many ways, not just because of the crap that my mum's going through. I'm still building up to telling you about all of it. But in the meantime, I plan on doing nothing in the next week but skiing, sleeping, drinking wine, reading actual printed books, and eating my body weight in unpasteurised cheese. (In case you can't tell from that description, we're going to France, a country where they store their cheese in the basement instead of the fridge. Bring it on.)

So that's where we are. I don't know why I've taken so long to get round to writing about this. You've always been so kind and supportive whenever I've talked about what we're going through, and hitting publish on posts like this always feels like a sigh of relief. Thank you for that.



While we're on this topic, forgive me if I take a moment to plug Breast Cancer Care's Big Pink Bucket Shake. They're holding collections all over the UK around Mother's Day (the UK version, which falls on 10th March this year) and need volunteers who are willing to shake buckets and exude cheer for an hour or two. If you live in the UK, I'd encourage you to check out the collections in your area and sign up if you can, or even organise your own. Pink wigs optional, smiles welcome.

See you on the other side.


Images: Lauren McGlynn Photography, taken in the Palm Court at the Balmoral Hotel, because we're posh.

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