Add to List - #70
Pubstack, sunsets, football chic and cowboy hats
Hello, thank you, and welcome. I love you for being here!
Add to List is my Sunday round-up. It’s the small things that brought me joy, evoked an emotional reaction, or became some short-lived stability in the past eight days.
Obsession
Pubstack.
On Tuesday I was invited to Substack’s Pub Quiz. Getting cosy in an old-school boozer (with a FANTASTIC vintage mirror collection), we drank pints, ate pizza, and got increasingly frustrated with tenuous pictorial politician clues. I had the privilege of being teamed up with
, and Heawood who were nothing short of encyclopedically brilliant company.It turns out random facts about most westerly points in the UK, and an exhaustive knowledge of 2010s music do have some uses. We managed to take home a small slice of quizzing victory — Silver! Narrowly beaten by Substack CEO Chris Best’s team of eggheads (or should we call them stackheads?) An all-round hoot.
Huge thank you to
, and the whole Substack team for putting together such a joyous event!
And, as always, it’s a pleasure to do anything with my Substack partner-in-crime,
who happened to be the real winner of the night: turning up, looking cool, and managing to hold many a conversation while unknowingly a mere 48 hours from unexpected surgery. Such a strong, brave soul.
A reminder: Lex and I host quarterly London meet-ups for writers on here. You can subscribe to for more info about upcoming events.
Confession
Now feels like a good time to also admit that being close to the quiz master may have had some benefits for us…
Shook
Friday’s sunset.
I took a small hiatus from a backdrop of hen do madness this weekend to spend 15 minutes alone staring off into the distance. There’s nothing like being made to feel small to allow the big feelings to swell. (The gin and tonics help with that too.)
Sunsets to me, are a beautiful melancholy; an invitation to participate in the temporary illusion we could hold time still whilst also being acutely aware of the minutes slipping away in front of your very eyes.
There was a strange calmness to my moment being backlit but the gaggle of girls screaming ABBA behind me — some of them friends I’ve known for all but four years of my existence on this planet. We’ve been through some of the best and worst times together, and I’ve watched my the bride, my dear dear friend, lose both her parents, persist in tough times, and gain multiple new families thanks to her kind, determined spirit. So, while I stared off into the horizon not able to see another soul on the beach ahead of me, I felt sure in that moment that must be a few special souls cheering us on from the other side of the horizon.
Cook
Mushroom wraps; a new use for tea stirrers.
On Thursday team
worked from Jamie Oliver HQ. His office has (unsurprisingly) a delicious daily menu. On Thursday it was a mushroom schwarma with tahini, red cabbage, and yoghurt.Yet the real veggie win of the week? About 2 hours ago, I was left stranded without a fork to eat my M&S salad on this (very hot) and overcrowded train. I asked the man from the trolley, and despite not having any forks, he offered me two wooden tea stirrers and suggested I ‘go Chinese’. It worked.
Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.
Book
God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
I’m still going on this — though I’ve stalled on much progress this week.
I took it away to the hen do this weekend, got it out to read on a sunny morning by the pool — and then the mimosas got in the way. I planned to read it on the train back but instead, I am penning this week’s newsletter. So if there’s a typo somewhere in here, please hold the maid of honour responsible.
Look
The weekend’s weather saw me sport shorts on arrival at the coast with business attire up top. As a result, I was left fashioning somewhere between business woman and football captain.
Then I tried on a whole new persona later in the evening for some line dancing…
Can’t Stop Scanning
This brilliant read from
on Main Character Energy.(And thank you to Substack pal
for sending it my way — a man of only stellar recommendations.)Forward Planning
Tomorrow I’m hosting Writers Hour In Person again with the lovely folk at
.Got a writing project you want to dedicate some time for? Want to start your week with some writing? Writers Hour (In-Person) is a sacred space for all writers. Starting morning pages for the first time? Or on the fourth edit of your eighteenth book? We don’t care, we just show up to write together.
How does it work? Well, we set our intentions together, read some Words of Wisdom to inspire our writing session and send us on our way, and then we raise a mug to showing up. We write together, in silence on our individual projects, joined in community and the act of writing. If you want to join us, you can get your ticket here (it also includes use of the beautiful co-working space for the whole day).
And later this week? I’m heading back out west to the countryside. My last trip was just too heavenly. So although I won’t be in that hammock, I’ll be experiencing a new type of village life, enjoying coffee in the garden, and taking the dogs I’m looking after to the pub. Bliss.
thank you so much for reading & sharing!
Old pals , ye canny whack it