Alison May's Blog, page 16

The Commonplace Book

Tell me now, do you keep a Commonplace book? A place in which to store all the great quotes you come across as you read? One precious depository for words that tickle you, touch you or inspire you?

If you own a Kindle you will no doubt already be keeping a virtual Commonplace Book of sorts whenever you highlight a passage in a book you are reading or add a note to a paragraph or page, for dear old Amazon very kindly collates our notes and highlights in one easily accessible webpage and thus we need never lose even the most fleeting of ideas or wonderful of words.

And so allow me to introduce a new series here on BrocanteHome: The CommonPlace Book – a weekly quote, paragraph or idea taken from my very own Kindle notes and highlights, and designed to share with you both words that matter to me and the books I am reading…

Do look out for it next week won’t you and in the meantime go browse your very own Kindle Commonplace Book, or else pick the prettiest notebook you can find and start a little book to treasure….

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The One Where She Buys A Bag and Cries Herself a River

So yesterday was the first day of my very own Commit to Your Own Life Program. And I took it in to my head that the very first action I needed to take was the purchase of a new bag, because that morning I had almost lost my phone while trying to stuff it in to my very cute, floral lined olive-green handbag, because I had been unable to close the zip and later found said phone lying on the driveway much abandoned.

The very idea of losing my phone knocks me sick. In it are the silly, lovely, teary text messages Mum and I shared daily. The photographs I took of her trying sunglasses on in Next looking like a nonplussed film star in a fake fur coat. All that and the rest of my life. Every message Ste and I have ever shared in Couple. My bank accounts and emails. Everything and much, much more.

So a bag that didn’t risk the loss of my lovely phone was suddenly priority. A good-sized bag in the kind of leather that ages well. With pockets, for pens and my Mother Pucker. And a zipped insert for the numerous receipts I seem to acquire on a daily basis. With a long strap so I can sling it across my body, satchel style and always have two hands available for lugging shopping and a dawdling child (a child that shook off my hand as we crossed the road last week, and informed me that holding his hand anywhere but in the town he goes to school in, would be just fine, but I needed to get off him right now!).

So I took myself to T.K.Maxx and found a bag that was just right, a Rowallan Bronco in beaten up brown leather. And then I decided that I could probably find a notebook to commit to there as well. And a handbag sized make-up bag too. So I wandered around in a smug fashion, purchases in hand along with a completely unnecessary bag of blueberry licorice, and then I was back in the car ready to ring Ste and report my commitment to betterment via the mode of retail, when it struck me that my phone had gone. All gone. Apparently forever. Despite turning my bag and the car itself upside down, by sheer bad luck on the very day I was making efforts not to lose it, I had only gone and managed to lose it altogether!

I cried. I drove home with the tears dripping. Worrying because I had not backed up my iPhone for an age because brother-in-law Louis had both set up two-step verification and changed my password and I had lost both and clearly I would never again access the inner sanctum of my own life and I would have to buy another phone out of the grocery budget and my Mum in her snazzy fur and mirrored glasses combi was lost to me forever, and Finley aged seven to twelve lived inside the phone too and now he was a hand-shaker-offerer his innocence was lost too and what if someone ran away with the meager amounts slumped in my bank account and why wasn’t the phone charged in the house so I could phone people whose numbers I didn’t have and wasn’t all this just so bloody typical of me??

Readers I had to slap myself to get a grip. 

And then I emailed my Dad to report my tragedy and he used his head and checked where my phone was on Find Friends and he said it is in the house or car somewhere and I said don’t. be. so. bloody. ridiculous. It is lost! And as we speak some hoodlum is stripping me of my assets and memories and he said, go and look in the car and I did because I do what I am told and lo and behold, there it was in the passenger door and the drama was over.

The moral of this tale? Back up your phone. Right now.

We have too much to lose these days don’t we?

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Commitment

Life is horribly complicated isn’t it?

And lately I have noticed that if I can complicate it even more then hell’s bells that’s what I’m going to do. Why stick to one supermarket, when I could visit four in one afternoon? Why get my hair cut, blown and colored by the same hairdresser, when I can call upon the services of three different stylists? How about notebooks? What kind of crazy lady keeps all her notes in one place, when she could drive herself dividing her thoughts in to a series of pretty little books? Use one skincare range? Hair-care product line? Ecologically sound cleaning products? No Siree! A person can waste hours hopping around the mall and the internet in search of fifty different products instead!

I am mad. Ste told me the other day that in the year we have been together I haven’t cooked him the same meal twice. Today I went to three different supermarkets because I wanted a certain soup from one, a completely delicious olive loaf from another and cranberry lemonade from the third. And during the weekend gone by, I discovered that I am the proud owner of twenty-three lever arch files, all in different patterns, and all eschewed in favour of the set of shiny white ones I have finally settled on. This is proof of my utter madness mais non? 

Seeking solutions…

You see I spend my life looking for solutions. Often costly solutions. Solutions that take an age to source and then do not work because I am so busy looking for a better alternative I actually fail to commit to anything at all, and thus never quite allow the things I spend money to fulfill their potential in my life to make things calmer. Smoother. To make life work like clockwork and allow me to shift my mind to more needful matters…

Streamlining…

Sometimes I am in search of better. Often I am looking for variety. Occasionally (whisper it) I just want to spend money. Yep there is a range of mad reasons I flitter, and fritter (and often end up in a jitter)! Even knowing as I do that the most effective of women streamline their lives so that they take thinking about as many necessities of life completely out of the equation, still I keep on complicating things so I can keep on telling myself that life will be better when I find the perfect moisturizer, the diary that helps me keep track of my entire life, and the supermarket that stocks absolutely everything I like at a price that’s right.

Enough already, right?

It is time to change the habit of a lifetime and start committing to all manner of things.

To a place to shop.

To an under eye cream.

To one notebook in which to keep my entire life.

To a hairdresser.

To a bag I use daily, instead of confusing myself by swapping bags constantly.

To an organic delivery box.

To a library (last week I hopped around three in one afternoon!)

To a monthly meal plan so I don’t spend my life dreaming up new concoctions.

To a lipstick that suits me.

To a range of well-being products that don’t work against each other (step in Modere?).

To a diary ( I have just ordered a Daily Greatness Journal).

To a man. (Tick!).

To a box-set (recommendations please!)

To a doctor (I am a revolving patient: constantly asking for a different GP in the hope of discovering one who will banish my thyroid problems!)

To a pen (I am yet to find the perfect tip. The perfect blackest of black ink).

To a social network.

You name it I need to commit to it so that the routines and rituals I live by aren’t constant compromised by change. That the products and the services and even the people that provide them are secondary to the commitment I make to those routines and rituals, so that from my efforts to fashion days from a series of lovely habits, I can go on living a life less ordinary without imagining I need this, that or the other to improve them…

Commitment it is then. Commitment not complication.

Is the time right for you to commit to your own life too?

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A Way of Life…

Have I ever told you, that try as I might, less is more is not my forte? That the other day, when I told you that as a result of my coursework for the Elite Blog Academy, I would be re-categorising my blog posts in to five sections. Sections that would act as pillars for the Brocante Way of Life?

Well yes. Five turned in to six. Heck, five is the new six don’t you know? For the past few days I have been up to my eyes, re-catagorising existing posts and so far I have only managed to get through about half of the 2000 posts on the site so please bear with, won’t you?

But now without further ado, I hereby present the six new categories of posts on BrocanteHome: categories that I dreamt up after many an hour debating what it was I really want to share here on the site and how I can best convey that to you, my lovely readers… 

Sanctuary 

Twelve years ago I created BrocanteHome to share my love of vintage housekeeping and since then it has grown and changed as indeed I have, to represent not just a way to keep house, but to my mind, a way of life.

My readers are special. They are creative home birds with rich inner lives, and a capacity for simple abundance. They enjoy keeping house, reading (lots of) books, creating rewarding home-based businesses, seeking alternative, natural remedies to all that ails them and blessing their days with teeny tiny treats that delight them. And they do all this from houses that are more than homes, they are sanctuaries for their very souls.

And so my first category is Sanctuary: a place where you will find all things pertaining to loving your home, keeping house and creating the kind of routines, rituals and celebrations that will help you create a life less ordinary…

Authenticity

Next up is Authenticity. The category in which I have gathered my most personal, authentic writing. If you are looking for my story (and oh what a story it is!), you will find it in this section.  My morning pages, thoughts, and longer essays on what it is to live the Brocante way in the midst of an oh so real life is all here…

Well Being

Like you, I am getting older and in the process my priorities are changing. I want to live well. To be well. To not die shockingly early from a disease a better way of life could have prevented, like my Mum did. To not feel like I am close to losing my marbles daily because I do make mindful decsions about the products I use and the food I eat.

I think about my own well-being all the time, and I want you to think about it too. So the category Well Being  is dedicated to keeping an eye on our most essential selves: little tiny somethings we can do to simply feel better as part of the rituals and routines we adhere to as part of the BrocanteHome way of life. In it you will find my own life audits, as well as personal puttery treats, reminders to live well and little somethings you can buy to fill up your comfort drawer and enrich your daily routines…

Bibliotherapy

Next up is Bibliotherapy because words are my life. And so in this section you will find book recommendations, quotes, poetry, and thoughts on reading, all with a deliciously domestic slant and all designed to remind you that reading feeds our mind, enriches our souls and inspires us to commit to creating a better way of life for ourselves and our family.

Creativity

My Creativity category is a delicious muddle of inspirational women, thoughts on working from home, arty snippets, recommended courses and tools for blogging that will help you as you set out on your very own creative journey. Designed simply to inspire you to forge your own creative path right there at your kitchen table, this section will eventually become a beautiful resource for all those of who looking to make your house your place of work too…

Noticeboard

And finally we come to the Noticeboard. The sixth cog on a wheel that should have only five. But it turns out I needed a place for all the notes about new downloads and books to live. A place for all general site notifications (like this one!) and thoughts about where BrocanteHome is heading as the years go by. So if you are looking for new product information or the release date of a planner, this is the place to start…

And there we have it readers: the first of a series of changes I will be making as I slim down life at BrocanteHome and try to bring a little more order to proceedings. Over on the home page today I have removed even more of the clutter to focus primarily on the content to be found of the site and to make it easy to see the latest blog posts in a Pinterest like wall I hope you will enjoy.

As always I would love to hear your thoughts…

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Shopping Eclectic

Welcome dear Housekeeper’s to a new series on BrocanteHome – Shopping Eclectic.

Once a month or so, I am going to sit down with my camera and take pictures of all the teeny little somethings that have made it in to my trolley, destined for my comfort drawer or else acquired because they provide a teeny bit of Brocante style joy in a world that can all too often seem so grey. 

So first up A Healthy Life from Jessica Sepel. You see I don’t know about you, but I feel so very, very muddled about all the well-meaning nutritional advice that is chucked our way all day every day. I want to shush the noise and be told this is what to do and this is how to do it. I want a plan. A really specific, gently persuasive plan and in A Healthy Life that is exactly what Jessica Sepel has created and I for one am happy to have someone who knows what she is talking about to help me establish a healthier relationship with food…

Next up a copy of Happinez magazine. Because the moment I sit down with this yogic, meditative ode to bliss I am transported to a sense of place in which I put extreme self-care at the forefront of my mind. Instead of worrying about whether the dog is trying to infiltrate the bin again, I feel calm. Hopeful. As if all things are possible. It really is a breath of fresh air in a world where magazines seem to become more anodyne by the day,

Then the copper cup  you see in the picture above. Oh copper cup I had such high hopes for you! When I saw it in the shop I seized it and ran straight to the counter because I had read that sipping water that has sat in a copper cup overnight, is terribly, terribly good for you. So I duly filled my shiny, tactile cup, popped it on my bedside table and went to sleep feeling terribly smug. And then I woke up and sipped it until it was gone and then went about my business. For a few days I repeated this entire performance and I got smugger and smugger until I developed a rash of bumps on the back of my tongue, and went about feeling muddled for a few days while simultaneously smug and lumpy and bumpy and a bit cross. And then I mentioned it to my dad and he said well what do you expect when the rest of your body comes out in a rash when it comes in to contact with metal? And that my friends was that. Now my pretty cup is destined for a life holding dried hydrangeas and I shall avoid faddy ideas for the rest of my days.

Now to my trolley treat of the month: Comfort Me Tea from The English Tea Shop. Now I am a woman who buys a lot of tea. And some of it is good. And some of it is bland. Some of it is yuck and some of it is so mild it is almost pointless. And then there is the kind of cuppa that really does have you uttering an ooooooh. And Comfort Me tea has got oodles of ooooh. And I want to drink it forever, but I bought it in Homesense, and a hunt around the interwebs has showed me that finding it easily, might just be a shot in the dark. And so m’dears I am thinking of these teabags as the ultimate in transient bliss. Not forever, but a little sip of heaven until I happen upon another box…

And finally on my trolley treat list for this month, a little bit of whimsy because every housekeeper worth her salt needs a decent feather duster and what would life be without a bird with a cheery little crown atop his tiny head? 

Happy shopping Housekeepers.x

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On Starting Again

And so the first anniversary of My Mum’s death came and went and it was nothing and everything all at once. Perhaps too raw to explain yet. I meant to carry on regardless, but it turned out to be harder than I anticipated and I retreated for a while: seven days of enduring something none of us here can yet tolerate.

Then yesterday I stood in my little house, cleaning it and wiping away the cobwebs, spiders taking advantage of our absence,  have seen fit to form, when my friend Debbie came up the path and said hello. And we stood in the house that was once my home and she said well I think this feels right: It is time to close the door on all these memories and start your life again. And because she is the voice of my own conscience I nodded, and we talked about Spark Joy and how on earth I am going to find somewhere for the many books on my huge immovable bookcase when there isn’t a bookcase to be seen in the Bungalow and ne’er a wall to hold one if I could take it with me.

It is time to start my life again. Richard will be released soon and it frightens me. And so much of what was is gone. Even Finn’s famed long curls have been trimmed in to a more manageable short cut (something that felt like a little death all of its own). It is time to start my life again. So last week I signed up to the Elite Blog Academy so I could have someone teach me how to trim the behemoth that BrocanteHome has become. How to tidy it up and show it off to audiences I have never had the inclination to reach out to, but now need in a world where writing isn’t enough. 

I need life to be leaner. For my world to be a lighter place in which to exist. I need my bottom to be half the size it is becoming. For BrocanteHome – like Finley’s hair – to be more manageable so I know whether I am coming or going, not flapping hither and thither like some sort of demented donkey carrying far too much on his sweltering back.

So yes. All this crazy imagery of hot donkeys is the long way around to saying that as I move through the very first blogging course I have ever taken, you may just notice some changes. This week all the categories that once existed on the blog have been deleted and just five new categories will take their place. Five categories that will represent the five aspects of my life as it is now. The guiding posts to a life less ordinary, and one that will in the very near future be the five pillars of living life the Brocante way.

You see life is never static. Change happens by necessity, because without it life spirals downwards and we have to keep daring to dream that it can be better. That we can update our websites without fear of heaven knows what. And more than that, update our own identities in this relentless search for comfort, authenticity and peace.

Is it time to start YOUR life again?

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The Slow Scrub Is Here!

Well hello there on this oh so very sunny Friday afternoon. I am just popping in to tell you, my lovely Housekeepers that if you ordered The Slow Scrub, the first month is now winging its way over to your in-box and you can start-a-scrubbing as soon as you are ready…

If you are a Rose member of The Vintage Housekeeper’s Circle you can, of course, hop over to the Rose Library and grab The Slow Scrub right now absolutely free.

And if you have got absolutely no idea what I am talking about, you can follow this link right now and learn all about how you too can start your very own Spring Clean in a way that accommodates work, children and those darn hormones…

I am starting my own scrub on Monday morning and I would be delighted if you would join me.x

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Modere

Today I want to introduce you to Modere: a company that describes itself as the safer, stylish way to shop for a range of lifestyle essentials—personal care, health & wellness, and household products that are equal parts safe, high performing, and beautifully designed…

I happened across it as I continue my search for laundry products I neither have to make myself, nor need to compromise my families well-being for. And there was Modere – with a range of cleaning products and lots more besides, all marketed under the tag “live clean” – a phrase that so neatly sums up how I want to live my life and run my household – with a commitment to unobtrusive, modern, elegant design that really will sit happily in any decor. (I can’t be the only person in the world who chooses product sometimes solely on eye-pleasing packaging now can I?). And heckity-pie I was sold.

Trying the Products For Myself…

A bit of online friend harassing turned up someone who was already using Modere, and she happily sent me a few samples so that I could try some of the products before I started to sing the praises of Modere’s rather wonderful (win-win) shopping philosophy and after doing three loads of laundry with both the washing powder and the fabric conditioner I knew I had discovered products that were both on the right side of affordable, smelled clean and fresh without tickling my nose, and (oh joy!) absolutely safe.

But the really good thing about Modere? They represent a new form of “social retail” which means I can give you £10.00/$10.00 to spend online at Modere, and you can give your friend £10.00/$10.00 to spend online, and she can do the same for her friends and we will all get £10.00/$10.00 each in shopping credits each just for spreading the word.

All that and every time you shop you earn points. And of course, what do points make? Perks and prizes the Modere way! I looooooooove getting perks for buying those things I would have bought anyway, don’t you?

And there is something for every aspect of the kind of extreme self-care I have long advocated on BrocanteHome: from skincare and body products for both men and women to soap and toothpaste, weight management, dish-wash cleaning liquid and much more…

Ready to grab your £10.00/$10.00 voucher?

Go here to shop the European Modere store or here to shop the US Modere store and start living clean with me today…

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Billy In Bunbury

Billy In Bunbury is one of those charming little vintage oddities, it is always such a delight to happen upon. Originally issued in 1926 as an advertising booklet for  Dr. Prices Baking Powder, the reason why I am sharing it with you today is that the images (by Gertrude Alice Kay) are a scrumptiously joyful ode to pattern and my heart is yearning for that oh so pretty dinner service…

Found on Project Gutenberg, Billy In Bunbury tells the tale of a skinny boy who has lost his zest for life, and needs, on orders of the King of Bunbury (a darling little town with walls made of marble cake) , fattening up post-haste on cakes and buns, flapjacks and biscuits because his silly Mummy has failed rather miserably, to understand what it is little boys like to eat…

And so  ensures a story told entirely in rhyme, complete with recipes for such delights as Jelly Meringue, Biscuit Tarts, Peanut Cookies and this one for a Birthday Cake…

Bunbury Birthday Cake 2016-02-23 04:21:33 A scrumptious, vintage birthday cake, baked in a bundt tin and discovered in the most charming of old recipe-story books, Billy In Bunbury...






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Prep Time
10 min

Cook Time
1 hr

Total Time
1 hr 10 min

Prep Time
10 min

Cook Time
1 hr

Total Time
1 hr 10 min
For the Cake 1 cup butter 1½ cups sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon lemon extract 5 eggs ⅓ cup milk 2½ cups pastry flour 2 teaspoons Dr. Price’s Baking Powder
For the Icing 1½ cups granulated sugar ½ cup water 2 egg whites ⅛ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon flavoring extract, half lemon, half vanilla
For the Cake Cream butter thoroughly; beat in sugar, a little at a time. Add flavoring and yolks of eggs beaten until pale yellow. Add milk, beating in a little at a time. Beat egg whites until light. Sift flour with baking powder three times. Add alternately small portions of egg whites and flour and stir mixture until light and fluffy. Bake in greased loaf pan in moderate oven (350°) about one hour. Cover with ornamental frosting
For the Frosting Boil sugar and water, without stirring until syrup spins a thread (238°); add slowly to beaten egg whites; add salt and flavoring; beat until smooth and stiff enough to spread. Put over boiling water, stirring continually until icing grates slightly on bowl. Spread on top and sides of cake.
Notes All measurements are level.
By Alison May
Adapted from Billy of Bunbury
Adapted from Billy of Bunbury
Brocantehome http://www.brocantehome.net/

Do enjoy fattening your family up the Bunbury way now won’t you?

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The Slow Scrub – A 90 Day Journey to a Cleaner House.

The Slow Scrub is the answer to all those questions you have had about how the heckity pie you can be expected to perform an intensive Seasonal Scrub when you work full time, have a babba permanently attached to your hip, or have the kind of health problems that mean energy is in short supply.

Yesarooney: I have looked at my own Seasonal Scrubbing process and understood that for some of you turning your house completely upside down over the course of a week or even a month, may prove to be utterly impossible and in reply I have created The Slow Scrub: a ninety day journey to a cleaner home with one guided task for each day of the three months in which you choose to slowly (but oh so surely) clean every nook and cranny of your home.

This then is the answer to Spring Cleaning your home: to offering the entire course of Spring to freshening up every inch of the house and in the process to re-discovering what joy there is to be found in a sweetly scented, well-loved home.

This download is utterly simple: there are ninety tasks that start with the bedroom and end in the kitchen, with no stone left un-turned in-between. You can of course choose any of the tasks in any order you please, simply ticking them off as you go along until all ninety are completed (so that if it makes more sense to you to do six tasks on a Saturday instead of during the week, then that is ok too, as is sharing out tasks among willing family members), but I have organised it in a traditional “top to bottom way” that I hope will mean you won’t need to go over the same area twice, and can on the ninetieth day complete your efforts by polishing your kitchen sink to a sparkling shine.

With all the same puttery goodness included in all my housekeeping downloads, The Slow Scrub is designed to inspire you to try to instill your cleaning routines with rituals that make it lovelier, whether that be home-made cleaning potions, a podcast on the phone tucked in to your apron pocket or an essential oil that delights your senses, because only when it is truly enjoyable will you commit to a process that will reap benefits for the rest of the year and allow you to step in to Summer with a house glowing with pride.

Who doesn’t want a house that glows?

Available for delivery to your in-box this Friday, the 26th of February, The Slow Scrub is available for pre-order in the new store today, and members of my lovely Vintage Housekeeper’s Circle will of course get it absolutely free as part of their subscription…

Click Here To Order The Slow Scrub for Just $12.00 Today

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