To Lyndylooloopops on the 33^rd anniversary of becoming a mum…

You…

• Gave up more than I will ever know, including your career as a textile designer, to raise and give us both the best start in life possible.
• Spent hours teaching me how to read, by patiently recreating sentences using home-made ‘flash cards’ from cornflake boxes.
• Promised yourself when I was born that you would always tell me I was beautiful and would never criticise me. This has given me unparalleled self-confidence and only hope I can instil the same confidence in my own children.
• Inspired and encouraged my interest to pursue a career in fashion from an early age. And because of you, I knew exactly what I always wanted to do from the age of eight. Not many people can say that.
• Know me better than anyone else and continue to teach me important life lessons. The most recent being that ‘people are more important than things’.
• Bought me my first Prada bag when I was 18. And have even more shoes than me (an impressive collection).
• Should be welcomed by Fidel Castro every time you go to Cuba, considering you’re probably their most frequent visitor and investor in local tourism.
• Are still my first phone call when I have any news. And my first text when I land in a foreign country.
• Have already insisted that your grandchildren must never, ever, refer to you as ‘Granny’. Even though the mere hint of any grandchildren is a long way off.
• Always stood by me, giving me the confidence to believe in myself and rise above the bullies who made secondary school a miserable place to be.
• Had to he held back by dad from dropping everything and rushing to our side when we had our car crash in Arizona. Instead you arranged for us to convalesce at Lucy’s in Miami (safe in the knowledge we were at least with family).
• Taught me how to be frugal and economical when it came to day to day purchases, and instead save the cash for the things that are important in life; nice houses, holidays, shoes and handbags.
• Have extraordinary organisational skills and love to host amazing parties. Be it catering for a summer garden party for 50 or one of your many festive lunches in the run up to Christmas. Huntingdon Road parties are known to be legendary due to the effort you and Dad put in (especially when you get a noise pollution complaint from the council).
• Have a wonderful collection of original Biba that you saved up for as a teenager and are slowly donating to my own mini collection.
• Never minded that your home became the weekend ‘drop in centre’ for noisy teenage sleepovers and late night post-clubbing munchies all the way through the 90’s.
• Taught me from an early age that being different was a good thing. This was a tough lesson; no one wants to stand out when you’re a young teenager, but thanks to you, I’d sooner stand out in the crowd than blend in.
• Know more about fashion and the latest trends than I do, even though my career means I’m immersed in the industry and always working 12 months ahead.
• Always make sure we have an amazing Christmas, ensuring the fridge is fully stocked, the champagne is flowing and the beds made for the constantly changing guests, waifs and strays you welcome into your home every year.
• Selflessly put your life, including your job, on hold for nearly a year to move in with and look after Granny when she had cancer. That time you spent with her meant more to her than we will ever know.
• Are a caring, generous and deeply loyal friend. This sometimes means you get hurt, but you have always taught me it is better to be generous with your time and love than to be selfish.
• Are beautiful, very intelligent, have a wicked sense of humour and an adventurous spirit that I like to think I’ve inherited.
• Maybe don’t know this, but all my friends think you’re the coolest mum (and I do too).
• Are someone I would have loved to have met before you were my mother.

You are an inspiration to what I can only hope to be one day.

All my love, AD xx

Like a soon-to-be bride, spending the last night on her own.

Drunk on emotions.

Watching the memories sticking to every wall like glue.

Empty spaces where a life once hung.

The contents of my wardrobe, losing their dignity in cheap laundry bags.

Neon orange stickers on anything ‘To Go’.

Laughter and voices heard through the neighbours wall only amplify a life that already seems a decade ago.

Soon enough five years will seem like nothing; right now they feel like the most formative years of my life.

This is the end.

But it's also the start.

Ring the bells.

Something Changed.

On 19 July, I move from Battersea, SW11 to Dulwich, SE22, marking the end of an era for this Daisy.

There will be tears and there will be an emotional post (you can guarantee that), but there is also a lot of excitement as I enter this new stage of my life and move to an area I have only ever been to six times.  extremely excited to be nesting, my credit card and cardboard city bedroom is testament to that.

One thing I am extremely sad and frustrated to leave (aside from my friends and brother of course) will be bootcamp, which I attribute to the only reason I can allow myself to stuff my face, nearly guilt free.   

After discovering Fit For A Princess (terrible name, but hardcore trainers) four years ago, the intensive two week, 11-day, 75-minute bootcamps quickly came part of my daily routine. Flitting between Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common to maximise training opportunities, I signed up to back to back bootcamps throughout the first few spring and summers.

And then when I got really into it, I put myself through two entire winters of training in pitch black mornings, under layers of Heattech, slipping on ice as we ran between commons, nearly getting frost bite on my finger tips as we did press ups on the frozen ground and not being able to warm up, even after a 10 minute hot shower.

Ahhh, how I miss those days.

But not only ia FFAP utterly shape changing and works wonders for my fitness, I have also been lucky enough to make some great friends, girls who use bootcamp just as I do; live hard, play hard. We meet for champagne brunches and spend nights dancing on tables, just as much as we spend our early mornings grunting over burpes, press up relays and tricep dips, willing the instructor to count us down.

As I spend my last few days cycling to bootcamp across Clapham Common this next week, I’ll look back on how I have watched spring turn into summer, into autumn, into winter and then back into spring, and I’ll be thankful for how these morning sessions help to push that reset button each morning; no matter what happened at work the day before, or what drama I have to face once I get into the office, this next hour is mine.

Watch us kicking ass here.

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150277423915795

You…

• Were a bit of a rebel in your youth and got expelled from school, yet still went on to become a very successful businessman (and dad…)
• Took over the family business the year I was born and since built it up into a mini empire that you should always look back on and be incredibly proud of.
• Have always worked so very hard to ensure we had the best life, in turn installing a strong work ethic in both of us (I don’t care if you worry you worked too hard when I was little; it made the time we spent with you even more special).
• Never really got angry with us, even when Ed spilt a cup of coffee over the VCR and flooded the house by bringing the garden hose into the living room.
• Were always so very patient when I was learning how to read, write and do maths, even when you were tired after a long day at work.
• Always organised imaginative and wonderful games at our birthday parties that had us squealing with delight, and me having a tantrum at some point because I didn’t win all of the prizes.
• (Appeared to have) a relaxed attitude to me going out with my friends aged 15, you imposed a curfew and instead taught me that it was about having a two-way trust. I never abused that and only hope I can be as fair on my own teenage daughter.
• Were apparently very nervous when I went out on my first date, but never let on, meaning I felt independent and not smothered. And home by 11pm!
• Taught me to drive on an old airfield when I was 16, even though you held onto the handbrake all the time.
• Were very disappointed with me when I had a mini-car crash aged 17. And since then I have only ever wanted to make you proud of me.
• Had tears in your eyes as you waved me off at Heathrow on my gap year and wrote me an email every single day, with a different song title in the subject each time. Being 8,000 miles away from home, especially when Grandma died, meant more to me than you know.
• Know more about music than even Stu does. And still love to go to gigs and discover new bands (PS: bagsie the Wurlitzer!!)
• Have more energy than anyone I know of even my age, still row with the same crew you did aged 16 and still hold the best parties.
• Gave me the twinkle in my ‘eye’ for art and design and inspired my love for Pop Art.
• Always inspire me to stand back, reflect and look at things from other people’s point of view, as well as ‘not eat an elephant whole’.
• Taught me it is always better to leave a party (and anything in life) before the end. Something I always try to do.
• Always offer calming, well thought-out and considered advice when I’m worried or stressed.
• Say its better to travel hopefully, than to arrive.
• Gave me your eyes, strong jaw and high cheekbones, but thankfully not your hair…

Happy father’s day, Daddy-O; you rock.

All my love, AD xx

Last Saturday my oldest friend C took advantage of a holiday vacated home and held a final hurrah at the house she grew up in; Farmfield. Her father, the legendary Bobby G, sadly passed away last summer and her mother, the glamorous Parisian Françoise, has accepted that Farmfield is too large for just her to be rattling around in and is shortly moving to a smaller home on the other side of Cambridge.

Farmfield is a stunning Georgian family home, with a beautifully landscaped garden, a koi carp pond and fields of barley to look out onto. It was Bobby G’s castle, his manor, his life and work, and, aside from the girls, his pride and joy.

The selling of Farmfield is not only the end of an era, but a poignant moment; Bobby G and Francoise were life long dear friends of my parents and I split my time growing up with C and her little sister N, between both our houses which were only a few hundred meters down the road from each other.

The most fun was had on the dirt track at the back of the house across the barley fields, where we would spend hours recreating Hollywood blockbusters with Bobby G’s camcorder. I’ll never forgive N for recording over ‘TopBike’ and ‘GirtonVille Horror’, if only to have been able to embarrass C and show them at her wedding.

C was obsessed with Jaws, and other shockingly bad 1980’s horror movies such as Amityville Horror. Before we discovered boys, insecurities, calories and cellulite, we would hole up in the den most weekends, scaring ourselves silly watching terrible special effects, indulging in pizza, homemade waffles and tubs of Häagen-Dazs.

As we grew older, the irony of C’s catholic school upbringing was never lost on me and to this day we will never know if Bobby G suspected, or even knew of, her scaling the ivy at the back of the house late at night, to meet Alex Baggaley and co. at the bottom of the garden for midnight walks… and the rest…. Or the party that ended up in a squirty cream fight and frantic industrial cleaning the next day before C’s parents returned from France. I like to think he was secretly proud of her adventurous spirit, thinking she was a chip off the old block, even if he would never admit it himself.

In more recent years, festive drinks at Farmfield always guaranteed a headache on Christmas Day morning, with the perfect hosts; Françoise bustling around the kitchen magicing up incredible canapés and Bobby G making sure everyone had a bottomless glass of champagne. Bobby G loved his music and early on in the evening, everyone would be dancing in the living room to anything from The Killers to The Kinks on his iTunes, way before digital music was accepted by anyone of his generation.

Sitting around my parent’s kitchen table the night after last week’s party, nursing a sore head of my own, we were swapping stories of Farmfield, my parents tickled at the thought of us now enjoying the same experiences they had a whole generation earlier; drunk adults dancing in their stilettos around the living room and ignoring the kids peeking through the banisters. Which lead to my dad confessing one particularly memorable evening the night before we were due to go on a family holiday to Cornwall. The red wine was flowing in excess at Farmfield and the next morning, after no doubt staggering back down the Huntingdon Road at some ungodly hour to release the babysitter, my poor mum ended up having to drive the six hours to Cornwall, with a very hung-over dad (who, by my calculations, couldn’t have been much older than I am now) and two kids in the back.

But what I most enjoyed about The Last Party, was watching C’s two children; E (7) and O (4), whom Bobby G doted over, enjoying the same run of the garden as we had all those years ago when C’s husband M reversed the small garden tractor out of the garage and the kids squealed with delight piling in the back of the trailer and being driven around the garden. At a top speed of say, 2mph.

C has promised to dig out the exact same photo of her 7^th birthday with the four of us piled in the back; the biggest grins on our faces and our whole lives ahead of us. I can’t wait to see it again and relive those happy times.

Bobby G; a legend in your own time. You gave us these memories, this one’s for you.

Today my brother’s girlfriend moved into the first house I bought five years ago.

Tomorrow I hand over the deeds to my brother.

The day after tomorrow, I hope to exchange on the first property I’m buying with The Boy. The first of many, I hope. The start of our new life, I’m sure.

Today is the end of an era I'm sad to see go, but tomorrow will be the start of a new one I'm excited to visit. 

Oh my. This jet lag is insane. Woke up at some ungodly hour, despite my attempt to chemically induce sleep and after pottering around in the hideously overpriced gym, thoroughly reading all Tweets and deleting some work emails, I ventured to the breakfast buffet (which should be banned, as I have no idea when to stop) and then was forced to kill an hour and a half at Starbucks in Shibuya, waiting for the stores to open. Not so bad though, my view was the below and whilst nursing my third caffeine hit of the day (at 8am) I watching the commuters battle the famous Shibuya crossing. From an anthropological point of view it was fascinating; everyone obediently waits until the exact point when the green man is flashing, everyone. There is absolutely no jay-walking. Even when there is no traffic; amazing. 

Having realised mid-flight that I had forgotten my Lonely Planet and then reminding myself how there are no subway maps in English, I hastily joined the queue of giggling school girls standing outside Tower Records (5^th floor; apparently the only English book store in SW Tokyo) to secure a copy of Time Out, but only after elbowing my way through the crowds; it appears I timed my visit with the same day as the launch of the Japanese Boyzone’s new album. I hopped skipped on the JR line to Shinjuku, where I was greeted with the below… Not quite as impressive as it is on an eve, but still a myriad of fonts, colours, noises and crazy little cars, punctuated with vending machines dispensing coffee-in-a-can on every street corner.

Whilst waiting for another bloody store to open (the stores open at 11am, apparently, in Shinjuku) I discovered a wonderful shop with very strange oddities such as these… 

Yes, they are French maid's outfits… And adult-sized school girl outfits. Wrong. But the photo that makes me laugh out loud whenever I see it (and made me gasp with horror when I saw them FOR SALE) has to be this:

Yes, that is a man, he is shaven and that's just the start of the wrong-ness... 

I was tempted to buy some of the below (having allergies myself), but I don't think I could summon up the courage to wear them in public and they would only end up festering dust in a drawer, along with all the other Japanese oddities I have bought over the years. I can't even fathom how they came up with the idea....

Onto Harajuku next. I'm in love with the sugary smelling Hello Kitty café next to Kiddyland; the line of school girls munching on the cookies directly opposite unfortunately wasn't captured, and I'm kicking myself now for not asking if I could take a photo of them. As a child I drove my mother mad for anything Hello Kitty, and even in my 30's the fascination hasn't waned.

Harajuku never fails to turn up some incredible pieces...

Yes, that is a Buzz Lightyear necklace, a My Little Pony brooch, and those are Barbie heads as ring and shoe trinkets. Tres odd.

Off the main drag, Omotosando in Harajuku, I found myself wandering around back streets perusing Billionaires Boy’s Club and A Bathing Ape  (I have no intention of buying anything - not my style - but their wares are incredible and the retail experience is second to none). The slightly more upmarket Beams and  Porter did have a good going-over, although I'm saving pennies right now. 

Further into Omotosando and Tokyo architecture really does come into it's own. This photo doesn't do the incredible Prada building justice, but it has a James Bond style tunnel entrance at the side (which I've tried to capture) and is super cool inside. I love it. And all of the contents. 

Next onto the upmarket Ginza, where you need a fat wallet and pearl necklace as standard. Abercrombie have recently moved into this neighbourhood, as have Zara, H&M and now Uniqlo have a new men's concept store; the High Street is invading what was once an exclusive street wall to wall with European designer brands. This isn't such a bad thing.

• Always maximise the time in the lounge, bypassing all duty-free shops, including Reiss, Kurt Geiger and Smythson. Even if one has found plentiful goods to purchase.
• Stop off at WHSmith to buy 1l bottle of water (if one is swathed in cashmere for the duration of the flight, one must ensure one is re-hydrated throughout...)
• Grab every English fashion / style / gossip related magazine possible. Avoid all Scandinavian magazines and copies of the Daily Mail.
• Suss out immediately, whilst not looking like a novice, exactly where the food, beverages and bathrooms are located. In particular when one hasn´t used this particular lounge before...
• Position oneself next to, or close to, said food and beverage counter to maximise consumption and intake.
• Fill one's plate with at least one of every single morsel on offer. Including the shortbread biscuits. And the mini crackers. Even if you're not hungry; this is a vital part of the experience.
• Check out all of your fellow travellers and wonder who will be next to you on the flight. Pray it's not the guy freeloading on the Asahi beer and peanuts. Or the brat-ish Japanese kids running circles around their passive parents.
• Avoid eye contact with aforementioned freeloader, who has now positioned himself next to you in the Business Centre, even though there is half a lounge of empty seats available for the taking.
• Check the Departures board occasionally, to ensure one does not miss one's flight, due to excessive prosecco consumption.
• Understand how to use a Scandinavian keyboard, or at least have the ability and dexterity to maneuver the mouse to make changes to every single word. After excessive prosecco consumption.
• Not curse too loudly when one realises one has forgotten Tokyo Lonely Planet and is therefore English map-less for the next five days...
• Avoid eating the two bars of Dairy Milk one has squirreled away in one's bag. And figure out a tactic to squirrel away yet more goodies from the food and beverage counter.
• Sleep on the flight; for tomorrow is a busy day traipsing the streets of Tokyo...

TTFN Tweeps, see you on the other side x

There are little things we regret like eating six Cadbury’s crème eggs in the space of two hours (yes, this has actually happened), or generous actions we learn to regret when we have been taken advantage of by those we loved. Emotional regrets teach us to not get caught up in other people’s shitstorms, serving us with knowledge of how to save face and pain along the way. And frivolous regrets end up with unworn shoes in the wardrobe.

But then there are bigger regrets that we have no choice but to live with; negative relationships that went on for too long with emotionally draining men who didn’t accept you for the wonderful being you are.

We all have choices to make and our motivation differs along the way; be it for love or loyalty, sheer greediness when it comes to crème eggs, or simply plain naivety.

I try to live my life regret free; we are here to make mistakes along the way and I figure it would be pretty boring if we were all perfect. However, looking back, I would like to have the chance to do a few things differently. Yet it’s only in the dead of the night, or on a tube journey when you swear you caught a glimpse of an ex-boyfriend, that you find yourself asking; what if some of those ‘big’ decisions have irreversibly changed the course of your life?

My hairdresser pointed out last night he has “always been impressed with the way you pick yourself up and get straight back out there after every failed relationship AD…” Ok, so I wasn’t very impressed with the “failed” comment; I like to see each and every relationship as adding to the rich tapestry of what makes me ‘me’...  But I’ll give myself credit where credit is due; optimism can be a rare trait. Especially for someone like me who has been around the block a few times when it comes to scraping the barrel of men in London.

The way I see it, why should I allow an ex-boyfriend cast me with shadows of doubt and insecurity, denying me a happy future with someone who might just be around the corner? Someone who I might be missing out on meeting, if I were to still be sitting around moping for 'what could have been'.

Girls like me spend our 20's telling ourselves; “we’re having too much fun to want to settle down…” but suddenly that doesn’t quite cut the mustard once you reach 30. And now I’ve reached that milestone, I inevitability compare my own situation with that of my friends, wondering in the dead of the night if I should have perhaps ‘settled’. Gulp.

Which then ultimately arrives me at the place where I wonder if my eternal optimism is flawed. Maybe I have missed the boat... Maybe I missed the opportunity.

That said; instead of sharing a bathroom with wet towels on the floor, toothpaste with no lid, loo seats always up and having to remember to pick up dinner on the way home, I have a forceful independence, a packed diary that anyone lacking in a social life would be envious of, a floor to ceiling wardrobe that is mine (all mine!) and most importantly, I can do whatever the sod I want to do, whenever I want to.

And suddenly it’s occurred to me; maybe it isn’t the ‘emotionally unavailable’, ‘socially inept’ and ‘confused’ boys myself and my friends have become so accustomed to blaming it on. Maybe it’s me… I am the main decision maker after all; I love my life and it’s going to take someone pretty special to get me to give this all up.

Until then, I’m off to fill my wardrobe with expensive shoes, dance until dawn, eat cheese on toast for supper and go on holiday to far flung exotic places with the girls; for these are the glory days I will one day look back on, sighing with regret that they will be no more.