Remembering to take stock

I've spent the last 36hrs developing a website and writing the copy for it. Not so different from my usual work, but this time the client was myself. As a freelance writer & editor, who works for clients all over the world, I've discovered to my detriment that an emailed resume and a few ropey scans don't really cut it when you are pitching for new work.

After ferreting through boxes of clips, searching my external hard drive for old resumes and even Googling myself to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything important, I can't quite get my head round how much real, honest to goodness proper work I've done, plenty of which had completely escaped my memory. Whilst I've been tucked away in my head, writing my book, I've got too used to the idea that I haven't done much of late in my career and it was remarkably empowering to realise just how much I have achieved.

My mother wrote a lovely piece on her blog today about my childhood and that, combined with my trip down career memory lane reminded me that it's good to sit down and take stock occasionally, to remember that the dips and the bad times can make it far too easy to underestimate and underplay our accomplishments.

Saving the best for last: why I've stopped stashing for the day that never comes

India wrote in The Sunday Times last week: "How nice it is that the concept of “for best” should since have become extinct". She was referring to dinner parties, but it's a conversation that my sister and I have been having for a few years now.

When I moved to America I had to pack up my London flat. Eight years of living there whilst working in fashion and beauty journalism meant that every cupboard, shelf and cubby hole was crammed with lovely stuff. Not that I ever used any of it. No, I was saving it all for best.

Those lovely Wolfords? Nah, I'll wear the scratchy cheapo ones instead in case I ladder them. That delicious Ormonde Jayne bath oil? Oh no, that's for dates & special parties. Silk lingerie? For boyfriends only. The linen sheets I inherited from my great aunt? I can't even think why I didn't use them. It's not like I was saving them for my trousseau.

Lil'sis really takes the biscuit on this front: her bathroom cupboards and shelves are packed four deep with expensive goodies: largesse handed over by my mother and me but every time I stay with her, I see the Herbal Essence in the shower rack and the supermarket hand lotion by the basin. She got cross when I told her I was writing this piece: "Nooo, please don't. Everyone laughs at me as it is about those shelves."

I pointed out that if this encouraged her to actually use the lovely products daily instead of waiting for a mythical event to make it worthwhile, it could only be A Good Thing.

Our reluctance to use the beautiful things we have stashed away stems from our growing up years when my parents spent every available cent on school fees & on mortgage payments. There wasn't any cash for luxuries and we eeked out anything wonderful that we were given, keeping it as a bulwark against the quotidian grind. That habit has stayed with us both, although it's no longer necessary.

When I packed up the flat I was horrified at the amount of unused loveliness gathering dust whilst I spent money on the cheap stuff, and vowed that I would start using everything I had been given. After all, I could see no prospect of getting through it in this decade.

I quickly realised how much nicer daily life can be when you are using a jasmine scented hand cream rather than Atrixo, that I felt so much better wearing a cashmere sweater or a frock to walk the dog instead of schlumpfing up to the Heath in holey leggings (they'll only get muddy, I used to reason).

After all, what on earth were we waiting for? Why can't today be made just as wonderful as the prospect of tomorrow?

The Daily Telegraph: 20 Best Fashion Blogs

Well, I was thrilled to wake up yesterday to an email from Kiki telling me that LLG had been included in The Daily Telegraph's 20 Best Fashion Blogs list, alongside such luminaries as The New York Times' The Moment, The Selby, Style Bubble and Jak&Jill.

Quick edit: Just received an email here in America to say that the list ran in print in The Sunday Telegraph's Stella magazine today: a magazine I love. I am thrilled!

So, thank you all my current readers for continuing to read LLG: I still find it hard to believe that this blog, which was originally my letters home to London from New York, has grown into something more.

If this is your first visit here: thank you so much for stopping by. Feel free to enter the wonderful Ormonde Jayne Bathing Oil giveaway in the post below, and to take a look at the links to various LLG posts here to give you an idea of the random things about which I write:

A Manhattan Birthday : Misbehaving in style
Breasts vs The Fashion Industry
My Favourite Christmas Present : the perfect heirloom handbag
Dating: Why Do I Bother?
Mushrooms & Mozzarella: LLG's guide to weight gain
Cooking in the English Countryside
The Ivy in Los Angeles (Gratuitous celeb spotting)
How to Make Exercise Pleasurable
Maelstrom at The Met: New York at its Best
What Fashion Editors Wear (when no one is looking)

Best London Pedicure? Maybe...

There was some light relief during my recent trip to London. Darling C locked the infants under the stairs and booked us in one Saturday for mani pedis at her local place in Highgate as her birthday present to me. (My birthday is in December. And that's why I love her.)

The nail salon culture that is everywhere in New York & Los Angeles still hasn't really taken off in London. Whilst there are more salons now than there were when I left in 2007, the price list will come as a shock to anyone used to paying $10 for their nails back in America.

I've been having my nails done for years, so I've tried plenty of London places, from Nails Inc to the anarchy that is Top Nail on Camden Parkway. C's salon is on a particularly unprepossessing part of Archway Road, just opposite Highgate Station, but the family who run it are fun & friendly & dole out lovely cups of Chinese tea (you don't get THAT in NYC).

Oh and they do a mean pedi. It's a month since I was in there and this is the state of my feet:



My big toes are completely unchipped, with just a little flaking on two nails that don't show in sandals. Impressive, huh? Please excuse the photography. Have you any idea how tricky it is to photograph your own feet? And what's with my toes looking all wide-spaced? I suspect I was about to fall over. Figures.

The Nail Bar, 315 Archway Road, Highgate, London, N6 5AA
Tel: 020 8341 0293

On the steps of The Met

I get a lot of blog-ettes wondering what I look like, and asking me to post pictures. Well this blog is anonymous, so I'm afraid this is the closest the camera is getting to me.