Stella's Country Escape

I love these Bruce Weber photos of Stella McCartney hanging out in her Wiltshire home. They're making me long for summer already...

www.vogue.com

Marni meets H and M

I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to contain my excitement about the collection that Marni's Consuelo Castigliano is designing for H&M.

I'm afraid there's nothing imminent about this - We have to wait til MARCH...

The 8th to be precise.

I'm praying that it's going to be heavily related to the Spring Summer 2002 collection that I am still totally obsessed with...

Some of the S/S 02 Marni Collection

Odd Christmas Sale

I've just done my first bit of Christmas shopping at The Odd Christmas fair.

Held by the owners Brigette and Robin Buchanan in possibly the most gorgeous home on the planet - why on earth did we not paint our sitting room bright pink? - it's a treasure trove full of baubles, rugs, trinkets, tribal rugs and bags. I had to properly restrain myself from buying a car full of tribal rugs reminding myself Christmas is a time for others...

Cant get over the beauty of those pink walls

www.oddlimited.com

Most beautiful Bedroom there ever was...

Here is the our latest, finished bedroom!

The wonderful Fifi came back and has transformed it into such a beautiful room, I'm quite tempted to move into it and have it as our own bedroom.

I wanted a pretty, Indian inspired paisley and above are the designs she came up with. She was originally going to do them in our bathroom hence the Farrow and Ball Hague Blue. But we ended up using the purpley 'Brassica' for this bedroom.

Fifi at work

In the beginning

Hattie Rickards Geo Collection

I went up to the 'Electric' on Portobello Road yesterday for the launch of Hattie Rickards's latest jewellery collection. It's called 'Geo' and is one of the most brilliant, beautiful, exciting collections I've ever seen. Lots of yellow gold with multicoloured precious stones - I know I'm obviously biased but it really is a sensation. The Flip Octo Ring has gone straight to the top of my dream Christmas list. I will definitely be buying a lottery ticket this afternoon.

Yes please to

the 'Flip Octo Ring with precious stones'

www.hattierickards.com

Dream Head board

I'm trying to remain calm and rational about this 'Juliet' headboard. I've just read that they don't ship internationally though so this is proving quite hard. How do I get this from LA to here? If anyone would like to go and get it for me it'd make me very happy indeed...

www.zgallerie.com

First Festive Feeling

I feel quite excited about Christmas today. It's all down to the very sweet feather birds that are sitting on my desk waiting for me to do something festive with them. Some are headed for a wreath, some will go in the tree. The others will probably perch somewhere prettily on a fireplace.

They come from the miracle that is Zara and cost £9.99 for two birdies. The other ones I got ( fat robins and white and brown speckly doves) aren't on the website any more and not surprisingly sold out pretty damn quickly. But I'm assured by the lovely sales assistant I checked with just now, that there will be more in the shops, toute suite. If all else fails, my Mama tells me they do have some left in Barcelona..

www.zarahome.com

Versace for Hennes

Something wierd's going on. I'm being unusually drawn to the new Versace H&M collection that's released this week. Versace couldn't really be a more um-me label if it tried. All tight and leathery and skimpy. Don't get me wrong, on the right person I love it and think it looks visionary; I just personally, normally, wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. What's even more wierd is that being the size of a house, there's no way in hell that I could even get my little toe into any of the pieces. Yet I seem to think it's quite a good idea to actually buy one anyway for when I'm thin again.

My usual daily wardrobe is a tent of some kind. Something floaty from Cabbages and Roses, a slouchy Zadig cashmere number, my fave boyfriend jeans. Being pregnant I have two tent-like, A line, wool dresses on rotation. I'm now getting to the stage when each time I see them I inwardly groan and yearn to be able to wear something slightly more form fitting. They now have so many hideous bobbles on that even a Remmington Fuzzaway would have an instant melt down if it saw them. The collection's coming out on 17th, so that means I've got until thursday to come to my senses. Or maybe not. I'll keep you posted..

www.hm.com/gb/versace#home

Operation Mochila, Round 2...

I do love a good Mochilla Bag. I spent hours searching for the perfect one last summer and still didn't manage to get my hands on one. Next summer I will track one down down for sure. In an ideal world I'd be getting the hot pink one below. Designed by Diane von Furtenburg for the BeLive Wayuu Mochila Project, it's got my name all over it. The only way of getting one if the beauties is to become a member of Lauren Santo Domingo's wondrous Moda Operandi and pre order one. Yes they are mega pricey and you only have until tomorrow to order one but 100% of the profits go to charity so at least you're shopping for a good cause...

The Givenchy Mochila

The Carolina Hererra Mochila

My fave, the DVF Mochila

www.modaoperandi.com

Man Down

It's been quite an eventful few days. We went up to London on Sunday night for 24 hours. Just to potter around really, do my highlights, bit of Christmas shopping and then go to Kempton market on tuesday before coming back to do Cub's 2nd birthday party. All was going to plan until I decided that I'd ignored the pains in my tummy for too long and thought we'd better 'pop' into A&E for a quick check up. Four hours later in the Maternity ward and I'm having contractions with midwives muttering about preterm labour. Not funny at only 28 weeks pregnant. To cut a long story short, there's still only have one Cub running about -for now, but I'm under serious instructions to rest. Sounds heavenly but sitting still is not something I do well. And I still have a book to write and a two year old hooligan to entertain.

So far my ideas of restful things to do are going like this;

Find Daylesford and go for a pregnancy massage in the Haybarn Spa.

Do supermarket shopping online - I do this already, it just makes my list look bigger.

Think nice things about builders.

Do christmas lists

Plan christmas menus

Think of names for next cherub

Pretty much all I can think of and it took me about half an hour to come up with it....

Maybe I should learn to meditate?

Most Beautiful Bathroom There Ever Was...

I am so over excited by our new bathroom. It's a proper vision. And also the only room in the house that is actually completely finished. When the drilling noise gets too much I go and sit in there and just stare at the beauty of it all. Instant calming magic. It's been done by our wonderful friend, artist Fifi McAlpine. We were originally going for some kind of a paisley number but when she showed me the floral ideas - slight change of plan. God know how she does it, but she hand painted the whole thing in two days flat.

Starting with the outline - all free hand

The original design

TA DA!!!