The Rituals of Home This week I had a fascinating conversation with someone who was staying at our holiday cottage. We were talking about the importance of human connection and he used a phrase I hadn’t heard before (at least not in the way he meant it) “social hygiene”. Much like sleep hygiene, he explained, it’s about the rituals and good practices that support our social health. Spending time face to face, eating together, talking, laughing, sharing experiences. Things t

One of the most useful decorating tools I’ve ever used isn’t a paint chart or a tape measure. It’s a camera. That might sound strange coming from someone who’s spent the last thirty-five years styling and designing homes, but as they say a camera never lies and it highlights things we’ve stopped noticing.The camera has no emotional attachment to the extra chair that was placed as a temporary measure and that you’ve been re-routing around for years but that has somehow become

Instagram has been full this week of gardeners sharing advice on how to help plants survive another hot summer. Hosepipe bans, drought-tolerant planting and gardens under stress seem to be everywhere I look. When we talk about creating a calmer life, we rarely talk about the garden, but I think we should. Our gardens can either become another long list of jobs demanding our attention, or they can become places of respite and rejuvenation. A few years ago, Dave and I took a hu