Scratching the surface

The week that was

Feb 26, 2026

Dear diary,

Last week my paternal Grandmother, Helen, passed away. She passed a few days before her 92nd birthday - a milestone I can only hope to I reach! I got to say goodbye, and I feel at peace with that. Ahead of the funeral I’ve been working on designing the funeral booklet, which has been a nice process for me. It feels as though I’m contributing something somewhat meaningful, so I’ve spent hours on it making sure what I put together is perfect and will honour her. I found myself googling ‘unique funeral booklet design’ which wasn’t much help - so I’m just going with an appropriate version of my own aesthetic, which I hope she wouldn’t mind! She was always a big supporter of my art, my whole family is, of course. So that’s what I’m working on this week.

I jotted down a list of nice memories I had of my Nanna, but then I thought I think it’s even nicer if they are just my own memories rather than putting them here.

***
Last night I had a marathon 2.5 hour bedtime with Seren. He’s still in his ‘only Dad can put me to sleep’ era. Oh, his Nanna can also put him to sleep, luckily. Which is not great for me if either of them are indisposed. Obviously it’s actually very debilitating. I’d had some success a few weeks ago but man. He is not making it easy for me at the moment. I get less stressed than I did in the early days, but after an hour of it I’m starting to lose face. We’ve never co-slept, but last night at 9.30pm after trying for 2.5 hours (with breaks!) I put him in with me and he went straight to sleep. I felt like I’d failed. I’d been so stringent with our routine and I felt like one time giving up and he’d never sleep in his own bed again. I guess we shall see if my anxiety tinged doomsday prophecy is correct, ha. I’m sure it won’t be. (If I have Simon around that is…!)

Seren’s also been sick this week. It just… hasn’t been a great week really. Now I’m super worried I’m gonna catch what he has and get sick for the funeral - this is how my brain works since Covid times. Healthy? No! Do other people think like this? I don’t know, I feel particularly paranoid. I’m sure there has to be a lot of residual health anxiety in otherwise normal people like me since pandemic times.

Thank you so much for the comments and messages about my writing last week - it was something I’d been meaning to put into words for ages, and while I feel as though I just scratched the surface - it was nice to scratch the surface : )

Sushi train 🥰

(I had to fast for a test)

Wishlist:

Do you know I do not own a black dress. Well I have one which I love, but it’s corduroy and has long sleeves, a winter dress which won’t work for a 30 degree funeral. This morning this came up on Depop so I messaged the seller to see if she could post express in time for the funeral. It’s H&M x Simone Rocha. And yes I dislike H&M but it’s not like I’m going to afford an actual Simon Rocha dress so a low end collab it is. Also purchasing second hand like cancels it all out anyway, right? It looks pretty beautiful and I know my Nanna Helen would have thought it was amazing. Fingers crossed it arrives in time and looks okay on me.

I also bought myself this to cheer me up :)

Watching/Listening:

We finished season one of The Night Manager, so now we can start season two. After watching the end of season one, though, it all wrapped up so perfectly (almost too perfectly) that I didn’t feel as though a season two was even necessary, but I’ll give it a go. The latest season is not getting great reviews so we’ll see.

I also watched the America’s Next Top Model documentary on Netflix. I’d never watched the original show before so it was all pretty new to me. Even so, I felt like 3 x 1 hour long episodes was just so indulgent for the story they had to tell. I often watch these Netflix documentaries now and feel as though they are created by AI, or something - it just feels as though everything is so sensationalised. I just want THE STORY. I don’t want to be treated as if my attention span is that of a goldfish (even if it is). I’m finding a real distinction now between content on Netflix and content on HBO, for example. HBO is a little ‘higher brow’ haha. Netflix is becoming like… New Idea Magazine!?

Ins and Outs:

In: Everyone at my work. I love my co-workers so much. Hanging out with them is always a real highlight of my week and I missed out this week : (

Out: People without prams parking in the Parents with Prams car parks. For the first time in a year and a half I scored one of those coveted car parks at my local shopping centre today. Couldn’t believe it. Made the trip super streamlined. The other cars around me, though, were suspiciously lacking in car seats and baby on board signs..!

Inside a book/magazine from my collection:

This is the second half of i-D magazine, June 2001. All the fashion editorial pages : )