Then when I got here, I was handed my first payslip in what feels like forever (unpaid sabbaticals are wonderful in theory, until you have to buy Christmas presents). I think I finally understand how that kid felt when he got a note from Maurice Sendak: I loved that payslip so much I nearly ate it.

Then this afternoon, I have a post up on A Practical Wedding, which is always something of an honour. This week they're discussing the joys of navigating the festive season as a married couple, and Meg herself actually asked me to write something for it (I think she just likes Scottish people, or something?). I may have saved her email in my 'Exciting' folder, but I couldn't possibly confirm. You can read my post here, if you're so inclined.

And THEN, on Saturday, Blonde Bridesmaid is getting married! I think I'm more excited about her wedding than I was about my own at this stage. Back then, I was busy juggling families and solving problems and oscillating between "HOLY SHIT I'M GETTING MARRIED!" and "WHAT IF PEOPLE DON'T LIKE MY CENTREPIECES?!" It turns out that bridesmaids don't need to worry about any of that nonsense. All I need to worry about is how I'm going to fit a pair of thermal long johns under my dress without the bride noticing (forecast is sunny and cold cold cold) and making sure the lovely Lillian and Leonard catch my best side.

If that's the worst I need to worry about this week, then I think I'm doing pretty well.

*Frantically grasps every wooden thing within arm's reach*


So tell me, how's your week going?


Image by David Sims for American Vogue, May 2010

Earlier this week I wrote a post for Any Other Woman's A-Z of Getting Married, called M is for Mrs. (If you haven't read the post yet, go and do it now. I'll wait.)

It's a little-known fact - and by little-known, I mean it's probably only known to me, my husband and a handful of internet shopping database administrators - that I am not a Mrs. I am a Ms. Well, I'm a human being first and foremost, but if you wanted to write me a letter or invite me to a party or sue me, Ms is how I would prefer to be addressed.

I used to be a Mrs. When I first got married and took Fin's surname, I changed my title to Mrs at every single one of the 6,745 different places I had to change my name. I just didn't think about it. I was married, I'd changed my name, I was a Mrs. We even had Mr and Mrs his'n'hers mugs. What's to think about?


And yet, every time I saw those three dreaded letters before my name, I winced. Something about it just felt wrong. In my mind, "Mrs" was only for teachers and mums. And "Mrs MyNewName" was specifically for Fin's mum, who also happens to be a teacher, thereby confirming my hypothesis. A 26-year-old with no children and a six-week backlog of unironed washing in her spare room had no business being a Mrs. No business at all.

I thought I'd get used to it, but instead I found myself disliking it more and more until one day, boom. There it was. The solution had been staring me in the face all along, right there in every drop-down box on every website that had ever guzzled up my personal data for its own nefarious purposes. All I had to do was scroll past 'Mrs', and click 'Ms'. Sweet, sweet relief.

So now I'm a Ms, and I feel like me again. I wish I could give some deeply feminist reason for the change, but the truth is that "Mrs" just made me feel old and frumpy and uncool and all those other sexist adjectives we tend to dump on wives and mothers. Ms, on the other hand, is sassy. She's sophisticated and a little bit mysterious: is she married? Is she single? Is she a SPY? Oh, the intrigue!


Of course, in choosing Ms for myself, I pass no judgement on women who embrace their Mrs-ness. I hope we know each other well enough by now for that to go without saying. And the reason my decision to be a Ms is little-known is because WHEN DO YOU EVEN USE YOUR TITLE ANYWAY? Never, that's when. Or only when buying fripperies on the internet.

In other marriage-related news, Blonde Bridesmaid's wedding is now just two weeks away. Two weeks! Squeal! So this weekend will mainly be spent on bridesmaid duty. I'm sure you’ll all be delighted to hear that The Giant Pineapple Dress Of Doom has arrived and been trimmed within an inch of its life. I no longer resemble any type of fruit in it, which is all you can really hope for in a bridesmaid dress, isn't it?

Happy weekend, folks.


Lara Stone does sexy housewife, shot by Mert & Marcus for Vogue US September 2010 via Fashion Gone Rogue

Here's how it works:

If you're single, you're a Miss.

If you're married, you're a Mrs.

If you're a big hairy feminist, you may be a Ms, but this is best avoided.

Yesterday, someone I follow on Twitter asked the ladies in her timeline how many pairs of shoes they owned, in an effort to establish what was a "normal" number.

I saw Callie Shell's behind-the-scenes photography of Obama's 2008 campaign on a BBC documentary the other day. It's very evocative. I especially love the ones showing Michelle and Barack together. (It might interest you to know we have a Michelle Obama magnet on our fridge, right next to a picture of Hildegard of Bingen. We like smart ladies.) I would urge you to look at the full exhibition here.

I'm scared to watch the news tonight. I might not live in the United States, but there are plenty of people I love who do, and I cannot bear the thought of that tax-avoiding, Muppet-hating twatface having any power over their lives. Please, America, make a good decision today.

In related news, Fin and I have been spending a lot of time lately watching a fantastic new television programme. We're talking the cutting edge of small-screen entertainment. You might have heard of it: it's called The West Wing.

Yup, that's right. We have NEVER SEEN THE WEST WING. Or rather, we hadn't seen it until last month, and now we are obsessively working our way through the entire seven-season box set. Seriously - why did nobody ever tell me? It's BRILLIANT. Sure, it's set in an impossible liberal fantasy land where everyone at the highest level of government is wise, principled and downright hilarious, but who cares? It's brilliant.

Is it too late to ask Martin Sheen if he'd like to run for President?

The last three months were, frankly, a blur. I lived in three different flats. I spent four hours a day on various forms of public transport. I helped sign up over 300 people to raise money for charity. I went to three weddings, styled two photo shoots, wrote a grand total of seven blog posts. There was a mysterious and somewhat gross infection in there too, a lot of standing around awkwardly in shopping centres holding a pink bucket, not a lot of sleep. But it was good, I think.

Now I'm back. Back in Edinburgh, back at work, living in a fully furnished home and wearing clothes that didn't come out of a bag. Adjusting to life sans dishwasher, slowly.

Some things are new. I walk to work now, across a park, navigating a stream of students on their way to lectures. I don't live beside a lighthouse any more, but I do live on the edge of a great heap of urban wilderness, which makes up for the lack of sea. Smidgen loves it. I have carpets, and some new things on the walls that I kind of love. I have a new neighbour. Soon I'll have another, smaller, one.

I'm back at the same job, back in the same city, but it feels different. Maybe it's the change of scene, or the changing of the seasons (I'm a winter girl through and through) - whatever it is, I feel refreshed.

I read this excellent post the other day, by a blogger who has fallen out of love with blogging. I wondered, as I read it, whether the same might have happened to me. It's been a month since I last blogged. A MONTH. That's just embarrassing. And it's hard to start again, once you've stopped; I feel like I practically gave birth to this post, it was such a effort to get it out. Am I rusty, or am I simply done? Am I over blogging?

I don't think I am. I've loved it too much to just ditch it. Plus there are so many exciting things coming up that I could write about: Christmas! Blonde Bridesmaid's wedding! Artem, topless! So, here I am. Trying to take advantage of my new-found sense of rejuvenation, for as long as it lasts.

All of which is to say, hi. I'm back. How's it going?


Smidgen yesterday, checking out her new 'hood. I was convinced she was going over the edge.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's easy to be dismissive of the pink fog that descends over everything this month, but behind all the pink froth and nonsense are real people affected by breast cancer. People like my mum.

In honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Care have launched their Pink Fridays campaign and are asking as many people as possible to turn their Friday pink. You could hold a pink day at work, have your friends over for pink cake (or pink cocktails for that matter), do a sponsored pink hair dye - it doesn't matter what you do, as long as it's pink, it's fun and it raises money for Breast Cancer Care.

Some of my ace blogging friends have started the ball rolling by turning their blogs pink for the day - a full list will appear here as their posts go up throughout the day, but for now you can find a very special Any Other Photo from me over on Any Other Woman, some simply lovely pink pictures on What Kristen Saw, and a post you can't afford to miss from style guru by night, GP by day Rebecca of Florence Finds.

So what can you do to turn your Friday pink and help people affected by breast cancer this October?

1. Sign up now for your free Pink Fridays fundraising pack and pick a Friday to turn pink. Or a Sunday. Or a Tuesday. We're not fussy.

2. Help spread the word about Pink Fridays by telling friends, colleagues, random strangers in the pub, your mum... and don't forget to tweet about #pinkfridays.

3. Check back here throughout the day to find out who else has been turning their blog pink.

That's it. And if you do throw a Pink Friday, you can be damn sure I'll want photos.


SIGN UP NOW to receive your free Pink Fridays fundraising kit and help make 2012 the best year yet!

If you would like to support Breast Cancer Care but can't throw a Pink Friday of your own, you can donate here.

We moved out of our flat yesterday, into a temporary place while we wait for our new lease to come through. The days leading up to this one have been horribly, overwhelmingly busy, culminating in me sobbing over the phone to a bemused letting agent five minutes before we were supposed to hand our keys in. We finally closed the door on our flat nine miserable hours later.

Imagine you reach into your fridge for the milk bottle at a critical moment (say, there's a cup of hangover tea brewing in your mug, or the half-made bechamel for your we-might-not-have-a-flat-but-we'll-always-have-cheese macaroni is busy congealing in a pan) only to find that the milk is past its use-by date. What do you do? Give the bottle a cursory sniff, recoil in horror and chuck it in the recycling? No! No you do not! Here's how to tell if your milk is still drinkable.

They key thing is not to sniff the bottle. Those crusty dried bits of milk at the neck of the bottle will always smell gross, and you could end up throwing away perfectly good milk, and tea, and macaroni cheese. Instead, get a clean glass and pour a couple of inches of milk into it, step away from the crusty bottle-top, and stick your nose right in there.

If it smells fresh (or doesn't really smell of anything), you may proceed to step two: have a sip. Admittedly, this part can be hit or miss. If it tastes fresh or just the right side of creamy, it's good to go. If it's sour or cheesy, well, oops. Sorry about that. Hope you had your toothbrush handy. But hey, better to realise now than when your cup of tea tastes like you stirred the milk in with your big toe after walking all day in ballet pumps, right?


I think the fact that I've used this glass trick more than once in the past two weeks probably tells you everything you need to know about what I've been up to. Comfort food intake is at an all-time high, while shopping for food at normal human intervals has taken something of a back seat. Flat-hunting can really sap the soul.

But it's all okay now because we have finally found a flat! With walls and everything! Just don't mention the dog. (Or the garden or the dishwasher that we do not have. Especially the dishwasher. I'm still in mourning.)

Okay. This post has literally exhausted my supply of handy household hints, unless you count sweeping up dust bunnies from the bathroom floor while sitting on the toilet (multi-tasking!). Anyone got any good ones for me? Tips on staying sane - and married - without the benefit of a dishwasher would be especially welcome...


Polkadot milk bottle and cow milk bottle both by Hanne Rysgaard

1. Visiting the Olympics.
2. Watching the Olympics.
3. Talking about the Olympics.
4. Volunteering at Fringe by the Sea.
5. Hunting for a dog-friendly flat with a garden and a dishwasher.
6. Planning and executing Blonde Bridesmaid's hen do. There's a decent chance I'm still drunk.
7. Sleeping on early morning trains.
8. Hunting for a dog-friendly flat, garden and dishwasher optional.
9. Wishing the Olympics were still on.
10. Suffering complete mental block for anything I could possibly give him. Seriously, I've got nothing. Nada.
11. Hunting for a flat. Any flat. Walls optional.
12. Sleeping on early evening trains.
13. Panicking unproductively.
14. Sleeping, generally.

Really, number 10 is the problem. You'd think being together for so long would mean I'd be brimming with ideas. Surely I know what the man wants by now? You would think so. But you'd be wrong. Remember, this is the eleventh birthday I've had to buy for. That's a lot of presents, and believe me, there have been some excellent ones over the years. Unfortunately, it looks like I only had ten good ideas in me, and now I'm picking through rejects from birthdays past, praying for inspiration to strike. My latest suggestion of "Kirsty Will Walk the Dog" vouchers, redeemable on demand, was not met with the excitement I'd been hoping for. (Apparently I'm supposed to walk her anyway. Whatever.)

I've got two days to get him something.

Fuck.


Talk birthday presents to me, people. Where do you find ideas? What's the best birthday present you've given or received? Actually, screw that - what's the worst? Please make me feel better about the fact that I'm probably about to give my husband a bottle of HP sauce wrapped up in kitchen roll for his birthday.


{High-waist orange knickers from pretty mommy}

Huge thanks to Jane for asking me to play stylist for the day. Over a year ago, I wrote about Jane and Kristen and their choice to lead a creative life, to bring something beautiful into the world that wasn't there before. For Jane to have confidence in my ability to do the same feels pretty darn excellent.

Please, please go and visit her site to see the rest of the shoot and the full collection in all its glory.


Soo... what do you think?

(If you're thinking, "Hang on, is that model naked?", the answer is, fortunately, no.)

"To be honest, I think commuting for four hours every day will be a blessing in disguise. I'll have so much time to write while I'm on the train."

- Me, last week.

The original tagline for this blog (it's still my Twitter bio, actually, because I'm too lazy to think of something else) was, "Got a boy, got hitched, now just need to get... er, a life?" Not the wittiest thing in the world, but it seemed to fit where I was when I started here. Newly married, unsure of where I was or where I was going, but sure of the person who would be going there with me.
Last month marked ten years since I got the boy. Today, we're celebrating two years since we got hitched. 

For our first anniversary, I dedicated a whole week to blogging about our wedding. In the interests of getting a life, I'm doing the opposite this time around and taking the rest of the week off. Maybe a little bit of next week too, since on Monday I'm taking a tentative step towards that life I've been looking for.

In the meantime, and in honour of today, I have finally gathered together all of the stories I've told you over the last eighteen months about our wedding and pinned them down in one place. You can find them here or by clicking on the shiny new sidebar button. Fake ponytails, homicidal grooms, kazoo solos: just your average wedding. We kind of liked it.

I'm thinking a decent pair of leather combat boots could be the answer to my rainy-day shopping conundrum. I was never cool enough for them the first time round, but as the dawn of my thirties starts to slowly edge into view on the horizon, something tells me it's now or never. I reckon the right pair could just about work, as long as I avoid the chunky ones that make me look like a builder. 

So, readers, I ask you:

1. Combat boots as rainwear/workwear: yay or nay?

2. Were you cool enough to own a pair of Doc Martens in the 90s? Would you still have been friends with me if my school shoes came from Clarks (thanks Mum)?

And, um, 3. can somebody please find me a pair of boots that is actually available in this country, unlike these bad boys?


I'm still working on the jacket - untreated cotton is my nemesis. Thanks so much for all of your suggestions so far, though. You guys are ace.


{Image: Stockholm Street Style}