Happy Christmas

The skies have been blue over Tillypronie, and a pale frost hard on the ground. Today there is the lightest dusting of snow, like icing sugar, but the dark earth is still visible below. Yesterday I walked down to the river, which runs deep and swift, filled with last week's torrents of rain; and then to the frozen loch, where last summer's lilies lie beneath the ice, their leaves motionless, as if held in time like Sleeping Beauty in a glass casket; and in the garden the berries are bright as a fairy tale...
Up here in the hills, it is good to feel one's small place in a vast landscape; to feel a true sense of perspective, where mountains are so much greater than ourselves.

A Christmas nativity at Migvie

There's nothing like a carol concert to make you feel Christmas-y, and yesterday was one of the best; the children from Logie Coldstone school came up the icy path to Migvie church to sing and dance and make merry. It's six months since we got married there, when the long summer days made December nights seem very distant; and the weeks have sped along too quickly since then, turning all at once into dark midwinter. But inside the church, there was much good cheer, with a warm message from the minister who married us (lovely Mr Ribbons), followed by mince pies, Scottish shortbread, and mulled winter Pimms for the grownups.
I'm now contemplating the return to London, and the rush to finish the March issue before Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, here's a link to the online piece I wrote for Bazaar about the Chanel show in Edinburgh earlier this month.

The January issue of Harper's Bazaar...

... is out tomorrow. It feels scary, as well as exciting, like having the first draft of a new book published... which I hope you might find intriguing, as an insight into developing ideas. Regular readers of this blog may very well recognize themes and motifs from previous preoccupations and pieces of work (Chanel, Vreeland, Dior, et al; the landscape of art and fashion, and an exploration of how understanding the past is a way to move forwards). Anyway, here's a peek from behind the scenes of the cover shoot. And there's lots more inside the magazine, including a Titian detective story by Hannah Rothschild, and a wonderful memoir by Tanya Gold. Please do let me know what you think...

Today we walked up to Alexandra Palace

A sunny Sunday, and my son and I set off to admire the view over the city, all the way south to the Kent hills. On the way home, we bought fresh fish at the Farmer's Market, a bunch of green parsley, and a good handful of courgettes (a recipe for a happy Sunday evening: supper then Homeland = bliss). In the afternoon, I swept autumn leaves from the garden and planted dozens of bulbs. The squirrels will eat some, inevitably, but I'm hoping that the alliums will survive and flourish next spring...

Remembrance Sunday

A beautiful autumn Sunday in the Highlands, where the leaves have not yet fallen from the trees, and the heather is still in bloom, as are the last roses in the garden. To Logie Coldstone for a Remembrance Sunday service, where there were soldiers from the Second World War, alongside several returning from Afghanistan. Very humbling... and then so touching to hear the silence broken by the sound of the bagpipes, playing a lament entitled Flowers of the Forest.
Yesterday, we were talking about the whys and wherefores of poppies growing in a wild flower meadow at Tillypronie, and the mystery of how they seed in some places, but not others. All of which has reminded me to re-read John McCrae's famous poem, In Flanders Fields, written in May 1915.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...

Please forgive me while I was gone...

I am so sorry for the long absence, but have been in a whirlwind of work at Harper's Bazaar, going to bed too late and getting up horribly early; though all the while -- usually at 4 in the morning -- thinking, I must update my blog! I haven't forgotten you -- in fact, I often think to myself, what would Kairu and Enid like to read in Bazaar? Or Lilac in May, or Jaywalker, or the Scrivener, and everyone else whose taste and ideas have been so important to these pages. 
Meanwhile, I escaped to Tillypronie last weekend, where the garden is looking so beautiful this season -- the autumnal leaves and heathers are gorgeous to behold... and there is even a splash of blue amongst the scarlet and golden palette.

Snaps: Paris Fashion Week

J-Lo Front Row at Valentino: the great man himself in conversation with herself.

Bedazzled at Louis Vuitton: short and sharp, yet also sweet.

Chanel on a vast scale at the Grand Palais: a triumphantly confident show, against a backdrop of white windmills.