It sounds mad but I think my house is mirroring my emotions – and not in a good way. For various reasons it’s been a tricky time – my boyfriend David was in hospital for an operation, our cat sadly died, and my 98-year-old mother has experienced a number of health ups and downs.
There is nothing I’d like more right now than to inhabit a clean, well-functioning house. Instead it appears to be manifesting a bricks and mortar demonstration of the turmoil I’m feeling.
Where do I start?
There are the remnants of the flea infestation I wrote about last week and the appearance of a chubby mouse who feasts nightly in the kitchen cupboards.
The tumble dryer has chosen to break down just as all the bed linen needs to be washed due to the fleas, and the hugely expensive Dyson cleaner has broken. The temperature gauge on the oven fell off, our bath is leaking and the doorbell doesn’t work.
Now I am very far from a woo-woo type. I have no time for astrology or psychics, but I do believe there is some connection between ourselves and our environment, and that, often, when our lives are challenging, our surroundings mirror our feelings.
I’m not religious and I don’t believe in ghosts but I have a predilection towards magical thinking – the idea that, contrary to logic, our actions and thoughts can influence outside events.
In 2016, when I was working very hard to put together a programme of events to celebrate Vogue’s 100th anniversary, I was sitting in the kitchen having breakfast when I smelt burning. One of the under-the-counter rubbish bins had spontaneously combusted and black smoke poured out of it, but looking inside, the only contents were one Diet Coke can and an empty catfood pouch.
I still don’t know what caused that meltdown, but the bin appeared to be reflecting my mental state.
I am now trying to manifest good vibes to ensure order is restored to my house – and life.
Manifesting is when you channel your thoughts into positive actions and is used by great athletes and entrepreneurs to spur them on to success. Natalie Massenet is a fan of manifesting and used it to conjure up the game-changing online luxury site Net-a-Porter.
I’d be happy just manifesting a space which is immaculately clean with no appliances breaking down and not a single health issue to deal with. That would be magical.
Sam Cam’s gamble comes to a sad end
Samantha Cameron will be miserable about her fashion brand Cefinn closing after eight years. The label was in some ways her reward for having played her part as the Prime Minister’s wife so diligently while David was in No 10.
For years she’d wanted to design a fashion line but had to put it on hold. She knew her dream was high-risk but, as an ambitious, hard-working woman, she thought it a gamble worth taking. I remember visiting Sam during the very early days of Cefinn, when it was just a rail of clothes downstairs in the house the Camerons lived in post-Downing Street.
She was brilliantly articulate and persuasive, talking about her vision for a range for busy, professional women who needed to look put-together and smart without being too fashion – the fabrics would pack easily; the pieces would work together.
In some ways she reminded me of Victoria Beckham – both women are able to talk about their ideas with total conviction.
Cefinn’s collapse is probably due to many reasons. It’s a difficult time for independent business. There has been a change in tastes and lifestyles post-pandemic and, due to economic constraints, she probably couldn’t diversify into a broad enough range to grow the firm in the way she needed to.
But no one could doubt the hard work and passion Sam dedicated to her brand, and I hope she is proud of herself for having tried to achieve her dream.
A nurse’s shift puts strikers to shame
Next time the RMT union thinks about striking, it should consider the impact such behaviour has on the people you’d have thought it would support.
Speaking to an NHS nurse last week, she told me she was working three long-day shifts – more than 12 hours. With the Tube strike, her commute was close to three hours each way, making that a gruelling 18-hour work day.
Compare this to the 32-hour four-day week the Tube drivers are saying they need.
Hairdressers are a cut above husbands
When presenter Cat Deeley announced her separation from husband Patrick Kielty, she went on holiday, not with her children or a girlfriend, but her hairdresser.
Deeley is far from alone in seeking the company of her hairdresser – Davina McCall is set to marry hers.
Back in the Warren Beatty Shampoo days of the 1970s, hairdressers were often stereotyped as super-studs, serial seducers of their clients, wielding the hairdryer as a sexual appendage. Now many male hairdressers are openly gay and sex is less the draw than some easy chat and gossip.
When Kate Moss moved to the Cotswolds, one of her live-in guests was hairstylist James Brown, a long-time member of her gang. And many movie stars travel with London hairdresser George Northwood, whose company is as nurturing as a cashmere shawl.
Hairdressing rates high on the happiness-in-job index. Perhaps it’s because hairstylists get
pleasure in making people feel good – they’re certainly a lot less trouble than a husband.
Will Windsor lump the Trumps together?
Spare a thought for social planners at Windsor Castle as they prepare for Trump’s State visit this week.
They probably already have the local McDonald’s primed for delivery and stocked up on Diet Coke – Trump reportedly drinks 12 cans of the stuff a day – but what about sleeping arrangements?
Do they, or do they not, offer the President and his aloof First Lady the same guest bedroom?
