Hello you big load of lovelies!
Muchos gracias for the lovely feedback I had on last week’s letter. Made me feel all warm and tingly and it was stonking to write something again. You’re a bunch of really good lads really and I lush ya.
So without further ado, let’s get cracking on this weeks picks.
Links of the week
The Afghan Dreamers - an all female teenage robotics team are building emergency ventilators out of old car parts <3
My heart broke a bit reading this short illustrated story about isolation by Mark Haddon
You could easily lose a few hours on Our City Together . Cultural treats from all over the square mile brought to an online audience.
Shit I love this week
Radio 1’s Movie Mixtapes on BBC sounds. Not your bog standard movie playlist.
Giving my fave true crime podcast, RedHanded a vote for the people’s choice award at the British Podcast awards.
Before the lockdown lunacy, I attended a BRILLIANT drawing class run by Wildlife Drawing. Each class has different animals as the life models, from wolf cubs, to piglets, via lizards and owls, and the ticket price includes a hefty donation to animal rescue charities. It’s so cool. I went to the lizard class (which was run in the taproom of the Gipsy Hill Brewery as a major plus point) and although I’m more of a Picass-NO when it comes to art, I had the best time and found it fascinating and really mindful.
ANYWAY, the classes are cancelled for now, but they are running a few special online classes- the latest is a PENGUIN class with a live zoom link to the penguins at London Aquarium! 50% of the tenner ticket price goes to NHS charities, so why don’t you p-p-p-ick up a pencil and get sketchy with the waddling wonders?
Is this the happiest song of all time?
Or is it this one?
Small Bizness of the Week
Lost Stock - This is a fatastic enterprise that has been set up to support garment workers and to minimise the amount of clothing that’s already been made ending up in landfill. Due to our pal Covid-19, there’s been a huge impact on the retail industry’s supply chain.
Over $2bn USD worth of clothes orders have been cancelled in developing countries, with no payment being made to manufacturers. This means that workers aren't getting paid either. In Bangladesh, the garment industry accounts for 84% of the country's exports, with 2.28 million workers affected.
So, how does it work? It’s pretty ingenious. Visit the website, answer a few simple questions about your style, how you prefer your clothes to fit and sizing, then they will send you a box containing at least 3 items of clothing that otherwise would have gone to landfill. The box is worth about £70, and you will only pay £35 so it’s a huge discount. Brands included are reportedly Topshop, GAP, New Look and other high street faves. Every box sold will support a Bangladeshi garment worker and their family for a week. So far 30774 families have been helped. Go get your online shopping fix there this week.
Musing of the week
This week I turned 33, and I’d like to tell you about why my lockdown birthday was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.
My husband and I have a running joke about presents. He always says I am the Leslie Knope of our relationship. For those of you who haven’t seen Parks and Recreation (and if that’s you, stop reading this shit now and go and binge it. Power through the first series, it really blossoms in series 2 and gets more wonderful as it goes on.) Leslie is BIG on giving extravagant and thoughtful gifts, and plans surprises and events that leave her husband and friends thrilled but always sees them coming up short when comparing their efforts to hers.
My husband professes that he is notoriously bad at giving gifts and planning. He shows me he loves me every single day by doing a myriad of things - he brings me tea in bed, he does the laundry, he treats me like a bloody queen - but gift giving is not his forte. For our first Valentines Day together, I decided to fill a kilner jar with 365 handwritten notes, each one containing a reason why I love him, one for him to open every day of the year. I know, I’m gross. He got me a book. Fair! I love books! For the next one, I made him ‘A Year of Dates’ - 12 hand decorated envelopes that each contained a planned and themed date day or evening, with a small gift that matched the theme for each month. He gave me a Body Shop gift set. Lovely! I love White Musk! Upon his return from a trip to Portugal, he whipped out the present that he’d bought for me and it was a tin of sardines. Nothing says love like tinned fish, right?
His reputation for terrible gifts is one of the reasons that featured in that kilner jar, because it makes me laugh so much. For his best friends 30th, he booked them both on ‘The Ultimate Zip Wire Experience’, a hair-raising ride on the worlds longest zip wire. When his friend opened it he realised that it was booked for a date that had already passed, and not in London where we all live, but in Wales. It’s such an endearing quality in him that makes us giggle and gives us a great line in anecdotes.
However, I eat my words, I have been proved very wrong because in these, the most bizarre of times, my husband threw me an amazing lockdown birthday. I was feeling a bit glum really - I had a very stressful week, and this weekend we were supposed to be heading to Norfolk with my family for a visit to the seaside town that my brother and I spent our childhood summers. But - check this out.
I woke up and was presented with cards and presents that he had been squirreling away all week. I opened them in bed with a huge mug of tea and being intermittently interrupted by my daft cat Laurel (see fig.1 below) who insisted on being part of the morning merriment. I opened: a colouring book and a beautiful Key Worker art print (BIG UP MY OTHER TEACHER BABES) from my friends, a ‘World’s Best Teacher’ mug from a girl in my class, a portable fan and sunrise lamp from my in-laws, a gorgeous marooon jumper that says ‘I’m sorry I can’t, I have plans with my cat’ from Laurel and from Ryan, a beautiful silver necklace with a bee pendant. GOOD HAUL RIGHT? I was then told to stay in bed and shortly had a plate of warm ham and melted cheese croissants and a cold glass of Bucks fizz brought up to me. We munched these in bed whilst watching Friends, bc we are deep down basic bitches. Two of my amazing musical chums sent me a hilariously whimsical ‘GUESS THAT TUNE’ quiz on whatsapp - TV themes played by them as recorder duets. I think the recorder is due a massive comeback tbh.
A hot shower, a hair wash and I bounced downstairs with my new necklace on. I cracked open an ice cold diet coke from a glass bottle - a treat given to me by my amazing TA who knows I have a serious DC habit and set to arranging not one, but TWO beautiful bouquets of Bloom and Wild flowers that had arrived in the post, one from my other in-laws and one from my pal Vic. Flower arranging done, Ryan then told me we were doing a Life Drawing class. Now, this was not like a Zoom class, or a session on instagram live - he simply stripped off, lay on the couch like one of Jack’s French girls and I sketched him. It was hysterical, given that a) I can’t draw and b) we could hear the neighbours in their garden next door and c) he still had marks round his ankles from where his socks had been. My sketchbook efforts will give you nightmares (why are faces and hands SO HARD to draw?!) but he insists he wants it framed. Would highly recommend as a lockdown couples activity.
Bucks fizz topped up, I spent some time on my latest jigsaw (the front cover of Sergeant Pepper) whilst he nipped into the kitchen to prepare our Parisian themed lunch - moules marinere with mussels bought from the posh fishmongers in Dulwich early on Thursday morning. We listened to French jazz cafe music and mopped up the creamy garlic sauce with crusty tiger bread and treated ourselves to a glass of really good white to go with it. You know when you know it’s a really good bottle of wine bc it doesn’t make you do the wine shudder after you take a sip? Yeah that.
My best friend popped round for a socially distanced visit so I could see my gorgeous chubby godson which felt like a soothing balm on my tired lockdown soul. Even better, she’d brought a present for me - a jigsaw of him grinning whilst sitting in a field of bluebells. Another delivery arrived in the form of a HUGE posh lemon curd cake with birthday wishes iced on it from my extended family . A bottle of Bolly (schweedie schweedie) arrived from my brother and his girlfriend (side note- a song my brother has produced is currently at no.20 in the charts, what a cool man he is, not like his chumpy big sister who insisted on wearing hairclips in the shape of cat ears on her 33rd birthday).
The world’s largest amazon box arrived, containing a jigsaw puzzle mat from some other awesome pals of mine. A great gift, yet we were howling over the state of the amazon packaging. PLEASE LOOK AT THIS FFS.
A bunch of helium balloons arrived from my Mum swiftly followed by a stunning bunch of peonies from my best mate. We played a Mr and Mrs quiz and a music themed board game in the garden with snacks and cocktails (espresso martini for me, woo-woo for him because he’s a 19 year old girl on the beach in Zante deep down). I had a zoom call from my old drama teacher and now dear chum and some assorted pals. My cousin and his wife who live 5 mins away popped over laden with cider, prosecco and aperol and a friendship bracelet and we enjoyed a socially distanced pizza and a couple of beers.
I rolled into bed full of good food, strong cider and feeling incredibly loved, and special. My whole day felt glittery, which was so unexpected. My husband had planned and plotted and prepped a whole day of fun and I am in awe of him and how much he spoiled me. You are one hundred percent forgiven for the tin of sardines.
I don’t really have a point or anything profound to say, I just wanted to share my gratitude. So to conclude here’s a summary:
If it’s your birthday during lockdown and you’re dreading it, chances are you may be surprised and as a result, may end up being one of your best birthdays ever.
Calories don’t count on your birthday.
Nothing says love like tinned fish.
Laurel of the week
Fig. 1
HAI MOOMY HAPY BIRDAY AH AM HELPFUL SON 4 U AN I WILL HELP U OPEN DESE BIRDAY CARDZ AN PRESENTZ OK