The Womens Room

We love:Dominic Wilcox

One of Dominic Wilcox's lovely modern ink stamps   
On the eve of the fancy London art fair Frieze, the Women's Room would like to bring you our own top tip on an artist we love. His name is Dominic Wilcox and he is a combination of artist and product designer. You know how sometimes you see a great idea and think, 'oh that's clever, I wish I'd thought of that'? Well Dominic's work is that sort of thing. He has just finished a rather lovely installation for The London Design Festival called Field, where he made a window full of Terra Plana shoe laces look as if they were growing and the gold plated luxury skimming stones have hit right at the heart of Middleagedad, who fancies himself as a skimming stone god.

Check out Dominic's website for the many simple but clever ideas he has been working on, we think that the ink stamps with wonderfully modern disclaimers on (as above) are perfect Christmas presents, and the totally fascinating black leather orgasmatron washing machine is making us rethink domestic appliances (we also love the Losing Your Virginity Room specially commissioned project). We have no idea how much anything costs as young Dominic is a little shy of answering emails, but we suspect the little gifty ideas would not break the bank. Lovely stuff.

Dominic Wilcox

Dominic Wilcox's luxury gold plated skimming stones with leather carrying pouch.

Simple Pleasures: Writing with fountain pens

 

  
 
 Colours from The Writing Desk's coloured ink selection
 
Life as a 40pluser takes you to some interesting places and this weekend The Women's Room found itself at the Writing Equipment Society's annual show in Kensington Town Hall. We were there with Amanda's dad, who has inherited a big collection of rare and vintage fountain pens he knows very little about. We have always loved the process of writing with fountain pens and think words somehow look better when they are written with a scratchy, inky flourish.  

Stall after stall of pen dealers enthusiastically offered advice and friendly banter as well as identifying some of the more hard-to-trace writing instruments (as pens are known in the trade) from the inheritance. All looked exactly like Amanda's dad, old blokes with a passion for pens who knew their subject inside out (the word super-nerdy came to mind as we were trapped by a particularly enthusiastic retractable pencil lead collector....). .

Things got really interesting though, when we discovered the display of coloured inks at The Writing Desk stall. Who knew there were so many glorious shades of turquoise, lilac, orange and green inks with which to fill our pens? We were shown pages and pages of colourful smudges in variations that would make fashion designers swoon with pleasure.

Naturally we bought, two chunky square glass bottles in fact, one of Saffron (bright orange) and one of Storm (violet) from the Caran d'Ache range at £6 each. But we found it hard to limit ourselves to two, fuchsia beckoned, as did a glorious crimson from the Private Reserve range. After a few minutes of study you wonder why on earth anyone sticks to just blue and black.

And not only do these inks look fabulous, they smell good too, Herbin scented bottled inks come in lavender, apple, rose, amber and violet so you can perfume even the most boring written jobs. For those with secrets, Herbin also sells professional invisible ink.

While we were admiring these wonderous new discoveries, the pen crowd were happy to engage in friendly banter, "You women have fashion and clothes to get creative with," said one chap, "We men have only got ties and pen inks". So there you go. release you inner pen nerd and visit the Writing Desk website to pick a colourful ink to play with (check out the colourama guide, you'll be there all day trying to decide...).

Writing (with a capless Pilot fountain pen, ingenious retractable mechanism) is a joy when the words come out the colour of saffron.

Simple pleasures: Tearooms

This summer we've spent a lot of time drinking tea and eating cake in tea rooms all over the UK. After a long walk in the hills or along the seafront, there really nothing better than a pot of tea and a slice of victoria sponge. We have decided the essential ingredients for the perfect tearoom, are a pleasant interior (we love the shabby chic/Cath Kidston look) well made tea (preferably in a Brown Betty teapot) and home made cakes.

The Boating Lakes cafe in Southwold offers all of the above and more and is one of our favourite haunts. As well as pedalos and rowing boats for hire, there is even a mini skateboard park right next door to keep teen boys happy, while you relax into your Lloyd Loom chair (complete with rug to keep you warm on cold days) and enjoy the delicious coffee and walnut, fruit, lemon and chocolate cake. Our favourite is the lemon cake. Tea is served on mis-matched china and cakes on cake stands. 
As Southwold seems to have turned into Islington on sea, there is also the chance you may bump into one of the many media luvvies or actors with second homes in the area.

Southwold Boating Lakes and Cafe, North parade, Southwold.

Simple Pleasures: Home grown vegetables

This summer everyone we know seems to have a vegetable garden. Even our friends with tiny backyards (now known as yardens, more about them to come soon!) have rejected flora and fauna in favour of tomato plants, herbs, courgettes and the like.
There is really nothing more satisfying than picking your own home grown fruit and vege for dinner. Barbara Good from The Good life has nothing on us at the moment. The only problem is, you can often end up with an over abundance of produce and it really hurts not to use it all.
At the moment we are busy making tomato sauce to freeze for those autumn nights when we need a quick nutritious dinner. Our favourite version is very simple and most effective when done in the slow cooker, or on the hob on a low heat, for at least an hour.

The Womens Room Favourite Tomato sauce
Makes as much or as little as you want (we don't do measurements on this one)

Home grown tomatoes
Celery (1 or 2 stalks)
Onions
Garlic
Carrots
Seasoning
Olive Oil 
Basil or chilli to taste

Fry the chopped onions, garlic and celery in olive oil, add in finely chopped carrot, skin the tomatoes (plunge them in boiling water and the skins come off in one go) roughly chop and add. Throw in some seasoning, a teaspoon of sugar and herbs or chilli and cook on a low heat for a least an hour.  Finally blast with the hand blender if you have fussy children who don't like bits!! Serve with pasta and meatballs or on its own with a sprinkling of parmesan.

We also love this recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, which is great for using up surplus tomatoes and courgettes. 

Courgette, prawn, tomato and lemon pasta
Serves 4

80ml olive oil
400g onion, chopped
2 fresh red chilli's, de-seeded and finely chopped
4 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped
700g courgette, sliced
400g prawns (raw preferred but you can use cooked)
1 lemon
350g homemade tomato sauce (or use a jar if you are in a hurry)
200g pasta
2 sprigs thyme leaves
Handful of fresh dill, chopped

Fry the onions in olive oil until soft. Add the courgettes, thyme and chilli and fry for 5 minutes. Next, add the prawns and cook for 2 minutes, then add the tomato sauce and bring to the boil for 3 minutes. Add the juice of one lemon and then remove from the heat. Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and combine with the sauce. Add thyme leaves to finish, serve and sprinkle with chopped dill.

Simple pleasures: Haberdashery

One of the simple pleasures of my childhood (and now my daughters) was to root through my mums endless bags of bits of fabric, yarn, ribbon, old buttons and buckles, ancient tins of hooks and eyes and pins, some inherited from my grandmother, others collected from well loved and now discarded garments. In my mother and grandmothers day, you didn't just through something away, you took all the re-usable bits from it and saved them. My mum always says she was recycling long before it was fashionable, as were many of her generation. Sheets were made into dusters, collars and cuffs were turned, zips were taken out, all to be re-invented in the future.

I have inherited the collecting gene and over time have come to appreciate the worth of keeping bags and boxes of bits and bobs (much to middleagedads frustration) Each scrap of fabric tells a story and brings back memories and you are never short of a button or a needle and cotton. I have even come to love darning (something I scorned in my throwaway teens) There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of repairing a sock and small children are really quite impressed when you hand them back their favourite spiderman sock, as good as new!

Simple Pleasures: fresh flowers

Ever since we were old enough to live away from home we have appreciated how fresh flowers can cheer up even the dowdiest of places. Call us extravagant, but even in the poorest of times we have used our last £5 to buy a bunch of gerbera or pansies to brighten up a horrible student flat or hideous rented house. Even now, with gardens of our own and nice houses, we often indulge in a huge bunch of flowers from one of our favourite flower shops, just because we can.
Having worked in London's West End on and off for years, Liberty's has long been a lunchtime sanctuary in moments of work induced stress. Simply entering the fabulous ancient shop enduces a feeling of calm tranquility and transports you to another world.
The flower shop at the entrance of the store always has the most stunning colour combinations and never fails to inspire us. Walking past the other day on a beautiful sunny day, we were struck yet again, by the simple beauty and never ending pleasure that flowers can bring.

Simple Pleasures: cake decorating

Peggy Porschen is more of an artist than a mere baker and decorator of cakes. We love her attention to detail and amazing colour combinations.

After moving to London in 1998 and graduating top of her class at the prestigious Cordon Bleu school, she went on to work as pastry chef at the Lanesborough Hotel and with master baker Gerhart Jenne at Konditor and Cook. She soon developed her own individual style and set up a successful business, making cakes for major events and celebrities.

She has been instrumental in the move away from traditional cake decorating to contemporary, cutting edge design and has published a series of inspirational books.
Her latest book Cake Chic is out in July and focuses on cakes for special occasions, such as birthdays, girly tea parties, baby showers, hen nights, cocktail parties and anniversaries.

They don't exactly look simple,but they are definitely a pleasure!

Cake Chic

Simple Pleasures: Beach Huts

Everyone seems to be taking holidays in the UK this year. Somehow it just feels right to be planning two weeks in a cottage in Cornwall or a camping holiday in Suffolk. We've never had so many requests to stay in our caravan.

A beach hut is a uniquely British experience and one of the simple pleasures of a seaside holiday at home. Usually situated right on the beach, decorated in jolly colours and hopefully equipped with deck chairs and a gas stove for brewing tea, the beach hut is the perfect place to change out of damp swimming costumes, make crab sandwiches, shelter from the weather and generally watch the world go by.
Even on a windy day, there is nothing better than settling down in a deck chair, with a book and a cup of tea, wrapped in a traveling rug.

Owning a beach hut requires much money and perseverance as they are usually very popular and are snapped up really quickly, but most towns have a few public ones to rent. Contact the council in plenty of time before your holiday. Some holiday cottages and camp sites even include beach hut rental in their holiday packages.

Some of our favourites include Lyme Regis, Southwold, Wells Next the sea and Mudeford in Dorset.

beach-huts.co.uk

beach-huts.com

Simple pleasures: bluebells in London

We love living in London but sometimes we pine for the simple pleasures of the countryside, especially at this time of year. Chance encounters with nature are everywhere in the country and often taken for granted by those who live there. Appreciating nature in London usually has to be planned, unless you are lucky enough to have a big garden or live near one of the cities many beautiful parks.
Recently when visiting friends who live in an idyllic village in Suffolk, we were amused to observe their ten year old son spend the best part of a beautiful sunny day on the Play Station, whereas our urban teens were overjoyed to be out feeding the chickens, riding bikes and climbing trees. A real case of the grass is always greener!
Cycling through Gordon Square in Euston last week, I came across these stunning bluebells. The contrast of the hard edges of the urban architecture and the simplicity of nature, stopped me in my tracks and the beauty of the image stayed with me all day.

Simple pleasures: pegging out

Some time ago I listened to Jane Horrocks on Desert Island Discs talk about the joys of "pegging out." 
If you are a Southerner, you may not be familiar with this term, or indeed with the whole concept of pegging out. But being of Scottish stock and married to a Yorkshire man, in our house we are very fond of proclaiming on a sunny day 'Its a grand drying day.'
Jane Horrocks sentiments mirrored my own, when she waxed lyrical about the intense satisfaction achieved by drying your clothes outside on a line. Hence the term pegging out!

When pegging out, there certain rules one must observe to achieve maximum effect and domestic satisfaction. It must be a proper washing line, no whirly things or strange plastic contraptions. If you must use a clothes hanger, it should be wooden and old fashioned. The pegs must also be wooden, nothing plastic or coloured and preferably stored in a peg bag. The peg bag should be suitably sentimental, either your grandmas or one you have made yourself. Although we are loving the bright check one from Toast

Pegging out has many advantages for both the environment and your clothes. Apparently if all households with a tumble dryer, dried one laundry load on a washing line each week instead of by machine, they would save over 750,000 tonnes of CO2 in a year!
Not only will you save money and energy, but clothes will actually last longer, as tumble driers can damage the fibres in your clothes (what do you think all that stuff is, that's left behind in the drier)

Good drying days are really more about wind than hot sunshine, so the British weather is not a good enough excuse not to. If you have no outside space, why not invest in an ceiling airer? 

Pegging out is a very simple pleasure that turns a boring domestic chore into an opportunity to connect with your environment and enjoy the smell of fresh line dried laundry, something that Lenor can never re-create!

Simple pleasures: stitching and bitching

The Women’s Room has a knitwear guru (Belinda) as a friend and she has been helping us revisit knitting as means of stress relief this week. Knitting has had something of a renaissance recently, particularly in the USA, where it is unencumbered with the old-biddy-craft-fair-crap tag that is has in the UK. As Belinda explained, ‘If you lived in the middle of nowhere in the USA, even until very recently, often the only way to get a new sweater was to knit one’.

 

There’s also a strong community spirit amongst US knitters and they are wonderfully enthusiastic bloggers who share knitting tips, patterns, recipes and their life stories on-line. Our favourite is the Mason-Dixon blog, where amongst the beautiful knitted sweaters and other complex projects is the pattern for a dish cloth square (right hand column).

 

Belinda informed us that Americans are enthusiastic dishcloth square knitters, as ‘dishcloth yarn’, an indigenous yarn from the home of cotton is as cheap-as-chips and comes in hundreds of bright colours. The simple squares are doddle to make, even for beginners and can be knocked up while watching TV or in the car whilst waiting for teenagers to emerge from school/houseparties/Topshop.

 

No such yarn is available in the UK sadly (although it is sometimes, erratically spotted in Lidls) as we quite fancy hand knitted dish clothes, which are certainly one up from a J Cloth and sounds like something the Conran shop should be interested in. However, soft string would work or Belinda recommends indigo denim yarn from Rowan as a smarter alternative –denim dishcloths!

 

She has also made the same pattern into face clothes and cute hand towels made of linen yarn, which in a very Martha Stewert way, make nice gifts when bundled up with soap or designer washing-up liquid. Alternatively you can just read the blog and imagine a life where there was time to indulge a denim dishcloth fantasy.

 

The Victoria & Albert museum lists some great UK knitting blogs at Knitting blogs, V&A

Even men knit apparently, check out Jared on Brooklyn Tweed

But Masondixonknitting is our favourite. 

 

 

 

Simple Pleasures: The Style Inside

The Style Inside  combines personal stories and beautiful things with a gentle simplicity and a stylish aesthetic. Writer Stephanie moved with her family to live in Ticino,Switzerland over three years ago and writes about her new life there and the simple things that inspire her. Having previously lived all over the world, she has a worldly wise perspective and global view of who and what she encounters in her small town nestled in the mountains. Her blog explores a beautiful place, where life is uncomplicated and full of simple pleasures.

Simple Pleasures: stay Golden

 

One of our dearest friends brought us this T shirt back from a recent trip to New York and it reminded us how much we love the Golden girls. You can still catch re-runs on You Tube or cable. We love the idea of sharing a bungalow in Miami with our friends, when we enter our golden years. No grumy old men allowed!

Remember ladies: Stay Golden.

Simple Pleasures: Come dine with me

Probably more of a guilty pleasure as we shouldn't really be watching TV at 5.30 in the evening, but Come dine with me, is essential viewing. Five Amateur chefs attempt to wow each other with their culinary skills in order to claim the £1000 prize. Every night we get to visit one of their houses and witness their attempts to host the best dinner party. The results are often hilarous and completely fascinating as we get to look round their houses as well as witness what goes on behind the scenes at the dinner parties.  Fabulously camp and wonderfully witty, it works on every level and the voice over is genius. The series from Preston was a classic, with one of the cooks falling asleep half way through her dinner party.

Come dine with me

Simple pleasures: making marmalade

Ok, marmalade is hardly a simple pleasure exactly, but it is a highly enjoyable one and there are many advantages to indulging in a little preserve making at this time of the year.

 

Firstly, it fills your house with a richly aromatic orangey-fug perfume that will linger for hours and make that scented candle feel like a lightweight.

 

Secondly it will make you feel a domestic goddess as it is not difficult to get great tasting results and will impress breakfast guests… “The marmalade? Oh I made it myself from early Sevilles, to a secret family recipe”.

 

Thirdly it will give you a chance to be creative with the labelling and any other embellishment you fancy -although middleagemum was bought a lovely labelling kit as a Christmas present so is taking the easy way out with pre decorated sticky labels, fully coordinated gingham fabric circles and matching elastic bands.

 

Fourthly, what else are you going to do on a wet January Sunday when you can’t go shopping due to the worry of redundancy and the threat of imminent bankruptcy if you even look at a high street store.

Seville oranges and granulated sugar are still dirt cheap.

Here’s our recipe

 

2kgs Sevilleoranges (early season ones have more pectin)

3 litres of water

1litre orange juice

Juice of two lemons ( throw the skin into the fruit bag)

4 kgs granulated sugar (preserving sugar is ok but almost not needed here as marmalade sets easily)

 

Skin oranges neatly and cut up flesh, tie all into a muslin bag or old (laundered) pillowcase, tie top well.

Put water, orange and lemon juice and the fruit bag onto a gentle heat and cook for hours (at least two, often a lot longer) until the skin is super soft.

 

When cooked, drain and cool fruit bag, remove skin and proceed to trim and finely slice the rind. Slice as thick or thin as you like and as much or little as you like.

 

Meanwhile, reduce the liquid slightly by boiling fast. When reduced by about 30% add the sugar and sliced rind and boil until set, about half an hour. A sugar thermometer is useful here, but not essential, keep a saucer in the freezer, after half an hour’s boiling drop a spoonful on the cold plate, the jammy blob should wrinkle when pushed with your finger when set.

 

Cool and put into clean warm jars. Embellish with creative labelling

Show off by telling everyone what you’ve done.

 

Simple Pleasures: The Daily Aphorism

Our favourite 'chemist for the mind' store The School of Life  has launched a new website, The Daily Aphorism.  Sign up and a beautifully typeset message is sent to your inbox every day for a month.

The Daily Aphorism publishes a original thought from well known thinkers and writers such as Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Winston Churchill, Jenny Holzer and Woody Allen and encourages readers to compose their own.

Aphorism means 'a general truth, or astute observation' and we think everyone needs one of those at least once a day. 

The Daily Aphorism

Simple Pleasures: Apronisms

Apronisms: Pocket Wisdom for Every Day, by EllenAnne Geisel is full of sayings you may have heard from your Mother or Grandmother. What you once thought of as old fashioned and dull you may now appreciate as wise and increasingly true.

You may even find yourself saying them to your own children, who will invevitably sigh and say 'yeh right mum, whatever.'

A tiny book full of simple messages for everyday life.

Apronisms

Simple Pleasures: It's official, I'm a Simplifier

 

Thanks to Moschino for this picture of its wIndow display

News today from the esteemed Harvard Business School, which states that us boomers (people born between 1945 -1964) are keen to simplify our lives because we have too much ‘stuff’. Professor John Quelch writes in The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to Simplifiers, that 45-60 year-old women are getting tired of our over stuffed, product filled lives and crave a simpler (but still comfortable) one..

Apparently we are “increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that it was all worth the effort. Out will go luxury purchases, conspicuous consumption, and trophy culture.” Instead we’re going to crave “more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home.”

As I wade through boys bedroom floors a foot deep in abandoned clothes and trainers, I can see his point. I am sure that we have enough T shirts just on the bathroom floor to last from here to Christmas. At least ‘experiences’ wont need tidying away. Or washing.

 

My own wardrobe is stuffed with clothes that hardly get worn yet I am still tempted by the multitude of sales offers being thrown in my direction by the likes of Marks & Spencer (20% off everything again!) plus countless others. And Gordon Brown, normally an old stinge preaching abstinence, is positively encouraging me to spend and clutter as much as I can.

 

Normally I would need little prompting to head straight for the nearest high street, but something odd has happened to me in the last weeks, I think I’m turning into a Simplifier. Prof Quelch is right, life has NOT got better with more shoes, in fact it’s got distinctly more annoying trying to tidy them all away.

 

What I’m craving is more beautiful, cherished items that stick around for longer. I still love clothes but I don’t miss all that effort spent replenishing stocks. I want one gorgeous thing, not piles of average-ness. It’s official then, simplifying is for me.

 

And think of the time I will save tidying bedrooms

Find the full article here John A Quelch: Selling to Simplifiers

Try this Instead

It seems the book we recommended in our last Simple Pleasures has become a collectors item since we first bought it and not quite the simple pleasure (in money terms anyway) we intended.

So take a look at this one instead, along the same lines and just as lovely but without the £500 price tag.

The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings

Simple Pleasures: For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness

A beautiful portrait of a gentle man in his twilight years, photographer Julian Germain documented the last eight years of Charlie Snellings life.

"I met Charles Albert Lucien Snelling on a Saturday in April, 1992. He lived in a typical two up two down terraced house amongst many other two up two down terraced houses . . . it was yellow and orange. In that respect it was totally different from every other house on the street. Charlie was a simple, gentle, man. He loved flowers and the names of flowers. He loved color and surrounded himself with color. He loved his wife. Without ever trying or intending to, he showed me that the most important things in life cost nothing at all. He was my antidote to modern living."

A must have book to pick up when life gets a little bit too much!

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness  by Julian Germain