While Chelsea’s finest – and Gwyneth Paltrow – were out perusing the best garden designs at the flower show last week, two people in south east london spent their week off work laying a square lawn, painting a standard shed and planting a handful of new – and frankly tiny – shrubs and flowers.* Yes, the garden is ready for its big reveal. And I have a whole new understanding of the term ‘mature garden’ and why it garners extra cache in a house sale…
What do you think? The cat loves it. My partner in crime now spends every evening setting the sprinkler on the lawn and relocating it every 10 minutes, and I watched way more Alan Titchmarsh on tv last week than I ever thought I could stomach. I really didn’t need another obsession – especially after introducing Sarah Lund and her jumpers to my routine – but this is definitely it.

* This, instead of going to Sardinia. HA.

Who says ‘vibe’?

Well we might have, but you will at least grant us that we’re not called My Friend’s Vibe. American interior designer Kelly Wearstler has no such issues, as I found when I read her blog My Vibe, My Life. Here’s a typical entry, with Kelly down at the market, vibing with a lettuce. For those […]

Turner Contemporary

So, My Friend has a flat in Margate, but I’ve never been so I took my first trip there this weekend (avec famille) to see the Turner Contemporary in the flesh. Look at the blue skies we got! My pics don’t quite reveal the mighty gale whipping past though, it was sand in the eyes […]

Political comeback

Ooooooo. She’s done a nice job though hasn’t she? We all know Sam Cam wasn’t happy about moving out of her Notting Hill home and into the Downing Street flat, but she’s got it looking pretty OK. Grey floorboards, a Danish sideboard, Dualit toaster in the smart grey kitchen – and a sofa that’s making […]

Clerkenwell Design Week: David David

I’m on staycation this week, doing the garden and eating pain au chocolat for breakfast among other things. But I did make it out to Clerkenwell on tuesday for the press breakfast where one of the highlights for me was this… White beech chair with pencil crayon seat design, which you can’t fully appreciate from […]