Senses and the Sea: What I've Been Loving This Week

Lex Duff October 7, 2020

Enjoy my recommendations below and find out a little of what’s been tickling my senses this week while we’ve been away up the coast.

Sound:

Driving the Sydney to Byron Bay route is a long one so I had been storing up podcasts for the road. One that absolutely tickled my partner and I was ‘Grounded by Louis Theroux’ in his interview with Mariam Margolyes. She’s a little wicked, hysterically funny and infectiously candid and Theroux is kept on his toes throughout the entire interview. She talks about her sexuality, her working career and living in L.A. as a British actress and there are more than a handful of laugh out loud moments. I would highly recommend Theroux’s podcast in general for its wit and whimsy but this one in particular was so entertaining. Warning though – if you are prudish, you won’t dig it!

I listen to mine on the podcast app: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/7-miriam-margolyes/id1508985962?i=1000477131607

Smell:

We’ve been staying a stone’s throw from the ocean here in Kingscliff and I can never get past this as my favourite smell: the mix of the ocean, coconut-scented sunscreen and sea-salt. There is something about the smell of sunscreen that conjures up the feeling of holidays, beach sessions and long summer nights. I’m pretty conscious about the sunscreen we use on our bodies and making sure they aren’t tested on animals etc. but after that, a lot of my choice is based around the smell. For clean sunscreens, great brands to look at are: Ultra Violette and We Are Feel Good Inc.

Taste:

Each night up here, we sit around the dinner table and chat over a few wines. We are away with my partner’s family and it’s been so wonderful to all have time together. Once the nieces and nephews have gone to sleep, the chocolate comes out. I’ve stumbled across a very reasonable, very yummy dark chocolate that is hugely underrated. Link below. Thank me later.

https://www.aldi.com.au/en/groceries/pantry/just-organic/just-organic-detail/ps/p/just-organic-dark-chocolate-100g/

Touch:

This year, my style has completely revolutionised. Not necessarily in terms of my look but how I come to acquire clothes. As many of us were, at the beginning of the year I was planning a holiday. I had made a pact with myself that to save money and space in my wardrobe, I wouldn’t buy a single new piece from the date of my birthday until we departed unless it was pre-loved and pre-owned or vintage. Well, as you’re all aware, the travel industry imploded and none of us went anywhere. But I decided my challenge should remain. I dove deep into the conversations happening within and outside of the fashion industry to do with fast fashion, vintage pieces and what’s driving trends. And it really struck a chord… more than a chord, perhaps. As someone who works in fashion now, I am super conscious about where my clothes are coming from and how they are being made, in addition to the impact their production has on the environment and what’s driving my desire for that particular piece. I now know the pieces I want to add to my wardrobe, rather than guessing or following an endless stream of cheaper products. When we got up here to the top of NSW, I had exactly the type of dress in mind that I wanted to add and funnily enough, a girl on Facebook marketplace was selling that exact piece only minutes from our place up here! So I bought the much coveted piece off her second hand! However, the brand itself is one that I can absolutely get behind. Their ethos, attitude towards sustainability and simple designs make them exactly the kind of brand I feel comfortable supporting. They are a Byron based business called The Silk Co and their pieces are made of beautiful raw silk! I feel like myself in my new Belle dress and that’s a good buy as far as I’m concerned.

https://thesilkco.com/

Sight:

I am absolutely enchanted by Jessie Burton’s writing. I know, I know…her books have been around for a while now but I was being a contrarian and didn’t want to hop on the bandwagon. More fool me. I just finished one of her pieces of work and jumped straight onto the next one! I’m flying through the pages of The Muse each day and filling the spine with sand. Burton’s follow up novel to The Miniaturist, The Muse is a beautifully interwoven story of family, love, identity and authenticity across two different eras, linked by an intriguing piece of art. I’m 200 pages in and I am desperate to turn each page and simultaneously don’t want it to end. It’s the kind of writing I had been missing – and I’m very much enjoying being absorbed by a story again!

I bought my copy second hand at a bookstore in Mullumbimby but Jessie Burton’s books can be found in all good bookstores.

July, 2020: Swell

Lex Duff July 18, 2020

“Surfing is a more profound kind of sport than it looks. When you surf, you learn not to fight the power of nature, even if it gets violent.”
― Haruki Murakami

Waking up in Paris...

Lex Duff February 5, 2020

I wake early. The double doors are slight ajar, room for the wind to whistle through and cool us in the Parisienne July. Nothing but a white linen sheet across us. This room – I wonder how many things it has been in its time. An important office, no doubt. A secret rendezvous spot, perhaps? A frustrated writer’s den? The apartment of an artist’s muse? It has elements of them all.

I slowly swivel my legs out of the bed and place my toes quietly on the floor. He sleeps too peacefully to disturb, the sheet draped only across one leg exposing his chest to the early morning air. I wrap a cotton towel around myself and go to the windows. Below us, Paris is ever so slowly waking up.

I peek the doors open to stand on the balcony. The view is unmatchable. Below me is the renowned Champs-Elysees. Paris has partied last night and now the workers are tidying away the remnants of the night before. The cobbled streets are swept, shop keepers are washing their windows. I can hear someone whistling in the distance. Somehow, even the whistling has a French accent.

In front of me, across the divide, are rows of French balconies attached to Haussmann style buildings. Cream render, wrought iron twists and turns, window frames like artists’ borders. Just behind this view peaks the Eiffel tower. He’s stopped twinkling for now. Maybe He too is waking up – a big day of attention ahead.

I walk to the edge of the balcony and place a hand on the stone railing. The ledge is cool to the touch, a refreshing feeling from the air that has already begun to warm the morning. I peer around the corner of the balcony and see the Arc de Triomphe to my left. Beautifully poised to bookend the street. Standing vigil, tall amongst the sky line. Cars warming up their horns for the roundabout.

I breathe deeply.

This apartment is a dream. The thing of French novels inspired by French Jazz.

A big day of sight-seeing ahead of me, I turn and sneak back inside. There is always more to see in Paris. A stone unturned, a wine untasted, a gallery untouched.

A visit to the Rodin Museum is in order. I’ve heard so much about the Thinker but we’ve never been properly introduced. The macarons at La Durée await, a river cruise with a picnic along the Siene, some obligatory people watching under a blood-red awning, hot chocolate at Angelina’s and a stroll down Rue de Rivoli.

With the sun not yet quite out, I stow away back under the covers just as he stirs and throws an arm lazily around me.

“What time is it?” he grumbles, peering at me through one sleepy eye.

“Too early. Go back to sleep for a bit,” I reply, curling back under the covers to wake up again in an hour or two with the rest of the city.

On the floor of the airport... [An Excerpt]

Lex Duff October 16, 2019

In 20 hours or so, You will kiss me on the forehead. We will have listened to Ed Sheeran’s new album twice through, deciding that perhaps Barcelona is our favourite song.

In 22 hours or so, You will kiss me by surprise in front of some deer in a London park in the cold.
For the very first time.
Somehow I will have spent a whole day waiting for it and still wont expect it.

In 3 days, I’ll realize I might just be in over my head with how I feel about what’s happening here.

In 4 days, I’ll accept that I was in over my head from the day we met.

But now, sitting opposite You at the airport, I might feel the most tired, most sparkly and most alive I can remember feeling…

I think I’ll always love airports for the rest of my days.

They remind me of us.

And of coming home to myself.

[An Excerpt from something very exciting in the works]

One Year On... the Emerald Isle

Lex Duff October 15, 2019

On this day last year, we left our little Ireland home and boy how much and how little can change in a year, huh? I miss it as much as I did yesterday and as the the day we left.

All of last year, it was our job to show people around the Emerald Isle. I was able to go and stand where I stood at 19 years old and scattered my grandfathers very Irish ashes, and take my Mum there too. We went to Trad Music on Sunday nights at McSorley’s and strolled Grafton Street on Monday mornings. We had house parties with a multiculturalism that would give the UN a run for its money. Ranelagh, Dublin became our home. It really was a dream come true and I am the luckiest gal in the world for getting to do it all with the hunk I’ve spent 932 days travelling the world with…

A year on, I still want to say thank you to Ireland for having us. It won’t be too long till we see you again. And thank you to Ev for being the person whose hand I hold at take off and landing, my hostel bunk buddy, my apartment hunting housemate, my road trip pal (realistically chauffeur) and for being my BIG love. It’s been so much sweeter with you by my side.

To all the adventures still to come and to all the memories that fill my head and phone, here’s to following our dreams, to calling it out when we aren’t and to making sure we keep living the lives that are meant for us. Where do you think you’ll be this time next year? Somewhere like where I’ve been looks pretty good to me…

xxx