Wood : fires, homes, doors, sheds, spoons, bowls, tables.
It brings me back to a long weekend in Vermont spent in a ski cabin, the ultimate cosy shelter away from the cold. Bowls filled with fruit and freshly washed veggies.

A place to store all your important gardening weapons and other things that have no place in the home.

The glow of a log burner, throwing splint and other miscellaneous flammable objects to keep the glow a-go. Doors that creak and are spectacularly inconsistent! They never quite shut properly. Tables stained with dinners, playtime, mug rings, the occasional “I was here”.

Or summers at a lake house in Maine with family. Holding memories of wooden summers, slow, simple, hazy.

Wool : The ultimate warm companion. Specifically in jumpers, scarfs and socks in and the colour red and blankets.

I like red because my hair is thick and dark, it balances me.

Red, softened through wool, its embers blurred. It feels like the nostalgia of Christmas or the bright cold stretch into spring. It speaks for itself, red. It requires simplicity to truly let it shine.

I love suede.
I don’t wear it often. I live somewhere where it rains too much, and despite every protective spray, the weather always wins. Suede is NOT made for rain, and I have learnt the hard way.

But when I do wear it, as a bag or a shoe, something feels different. My movements soften. I step more carefully. More intentionally.
It is intentional to wear suede because it is so impractical. It scuffs. It resists the elements. But when I am allowed to choose it, I enjoy it and like that it’s a part of me for that day.

I love it in the home too. In the room we call the snug, there are soft pink suede lampshades, covering small wall lights. They glow differently to glass. Gentler. Paired with brass, that’s a contrast that was thought about.
And I like when things are thought about.

Paper

The thick, soft kind that crinkles easily. The one that feels like it could have been sent to sea in a bottle, or that its so soft it almost feels like cloth. Pen melts into its fibres, continuous folds age it well.

I like…

Tea towels, crayon, handmade ceramics, fish and chip shop paper, and light linens.

Wicker.

Especially as a basket.

Tweed. Reminds me of my roots as an English woman, particularly when it lines the inside of a cuff, brushing against another fabric.

The Wellington Boot.
So practical, so universal. I feel oddly proud every time I tuck my jeans into a pair to walk the dog or head out into mud. It feels quintessentially British.

Stone Reminds me of well-made floors and kitchens, and of time spent in Rome. Travertine, technically, but still stone. Solid, enduring, made for longevity. Unlike so many things now.

As I get older, I collect preferences the way a small girl picks flowers.
Yes. No. Maybe. Get rid of it. Definitely keep this one.
I like this because it looks good next to that.
I like this because when I hold it juuusstt like this, it all comes together.

I do like to think of my preferences as a collection that is gathered and sorted every few months.
Some things I keep. Some things I outgrow. Some things only make sense when placed next to something else.

Wool with Linen - Lush. Light, Warm just in case.

Brass and Suede - delicate and sturdy, a rare pairing. Perfect for a home that needs to endure its daily weathering with style.

Wood and Stone - Suddenly, the supermarket doesn’t exist and I want to bake bread from scratch and get to know what it truly feels like to let ingredients combine on essential terms.

Over time, I’ve realised more and more just how specific I really am.
Alright you could say picky.

I am picky about food. Not in the way of I don’t like many foods.
My porridge needs the perfect ratio of milk to ‘cook’. Not dense, but not loose either. Creamy enough that the spoon glides through without effort. Not cutting, not sinking. Sliding. Gliding.

I also like to have it on a certain kind of day. I won’t have it during a rushed morning -that’s not porridge is for.

Porridge is something to be enjoyed slowly, letting it cool to the perfect temperature. Around 1 hour before leaving for work or mid-morning on a weekend. Black coffee brewed and poured slightly before plating the porridge to allow both to reach perfect temperature sycronisity. An empty kitchen, Smooth FM humming, beating softly in the background. Not distracting.

A dessert sized spoon, and the pot of honey on the side, ready to drizzle after each honey-less layer is revealed.

When it is this way, to me, it is right.

Toast : level four, though I’ll adjust depending on thickness. Lightly golden, not browned or burnt. Small plate.

Butter and salt, orange marmalade or peanut butter with banana and honey.

Tea : strong, fairly generously milked, no sugar. Sweetness saved for the side: a chocolate all-butter biscuit or a Tunnock’s Tea Cake.

My best friend taught me how to brew a proper cup of tea when we lived together in my first year of university. A small North London flat, an even smaller kitchen.

My nan made me try porridge when I didn’t even like milk. Hers was so dense it was closer to a flapjack. Now I understand why we don’t have it like that.

Everything I love, everything I collect, everything that has a “way” comes from somewhere. From people. From moments. From being shown. Even when the memory isn’t sharp.

I don’t remember the first time I noticed wicker, only that it always seemed to belong in calm homes.

From living in the countryside I’ve observed more pairs of welly boots and their true nature in a way I could have never if I lived in the city.

They are a tool. Not just for style, rain and puddles.

Hard core mud that you can’t avoid landing in after jumping out the truck. Deep, thick, sinking, impossible to sidestep because chances are you'll slip on the uneven land.

You got to go through it, but, it’s okay, because, the welly boot <3.

And then there’s times in a much more vivid way, where I am reminded of the stitching of someone else’s ways sewn into mine.

Every time I rush to make tea, I hear my friend telling me to leave it longer. Then squeeze the life out of the bag. Milk after, to the right colour.

I don’t have to wonder if my tea will be good because I made it just the way we practiced.

That is what makes a life feel full.
And mine, because of these small things, sits on a very rich scale.

How marvellous, how magical, how strange, that somehow in what can feel like our empty, selfish, sadened world. If we look hard enough. We can find that for a moment there might just be more to our doings then what we are abusing it for.

Identity in objects.
Memory in taste.
Love in doing.
Inheritance, quietly living on in preference.

What we like is rarely accidental. It’s built. Through repetition, experience, connection. Through places we return to, even if we only went once.

And over time, those things become something else. Without noticing, it all gathers.
In the way we dress, the way we eat, the way we make tea.

In choosings. In keepings. In memories of wool, wood, socks and stone. In small rituals done well.

They become individually ours.

A life built from small things, noticed properly, is never a small life.