I'm short on time today - meetings in London after a week in Newcastle, a 60th birthday with old friends tonight and then the last of our Christmas parties tomorrow. After that life is narrowing down a bit with a focus on close friends and family for December. Phew! So I've had to finish pulling this together on the train this morning and the wi-fi really isn't playing ball. However there are some Black Friday 25 offers on some [...]
My midlife style staples - now discounted This is a two part post again because there's something that's rattled me that I have to pick up on so I'll get that out of the way at the beginning. Then I'll move on to my midlife style staples - now discounted. Rather than just trawling through the Black Friday offers I thought I'd make it more useful by rounding up the things I love so much that I replicate [...]
Simple gifts for men 2025 - by request In response to my surprise post on Tuesday a couple of messages came in lamenting the fact that I wasn't planning on doing as many gift posts this year - particularly the gift ideas for men. And we all know why - men are hard to buy for. As a mum of boys I'm very aware that from the moment they're born most of them want to 'do' rather than [...]
I'm approaching Christmas a little differently this year. I can't believe how early the Black Friday madness has started and I don't know about you but I already feel bombarded by gift lists and discount messages. I've been chatting to some of my old Selfridges colleagues this week about how our role at this time of year used to be to create magic for people - to make a trip into London worth it. There was no discounting before [...]
From the comments last week it sounds as though the Christmas spirit is slowly catching light in our midlife world. It's always more fun thinking about the what to wear bit than the sprouts and bread sauce though isn't it? So today I have a little more on that note, not just partywear but winter dressing in general as I bring the latest Boden drop to life. At this time of year I like to find an hour on [...]
As is the way these days the Halloween decorations went down last weekend and the Christmas ones started going up - not in my house but in a lot of others that I spotted when I was driving to Sainsbury's! So, I'm easing you in gently today with one of my favourite topics - party style - or just getting dressed for going 'out out'. I've been writing a version of this piece in early November since 1993 and [...]
