Joanna Plant’s guide to luxurious lounging
A-list interior designer Joanna Plant knows a thing or two about curating the perfect space. Here she shares her tips for maximising down time between Christmas and New Year, from the bedsheets to envelop yourself in to books to escape with. There is that bit between Christmas and New Year (the perineum of the year?!) when nothing much happens and there is time to power down and spend a good deal of time horizontal. Embrace the short, dark days when the phone rings less and you can close the front door against the world to take a break from quotidian pressures and calm the mind and spirit in readiness for all that the New Year brings.
I plan on having late mornings and early nights and possibly even the odd afternoon taking myself off to bed for a nap. With this in mind, I’m making sure that my bed is made up beautifully at all times with good sheets and lots of pillows for sitting up and reading. I’m hoping that Father Christmas might bring me some sheets and pillowcases from Volga Linen as they are hands down the most beautiful.
It’s possible that I have been watching too many episodes of The Crown (Season 1 is SOOO good), but I have a yearning for a breakfast tray. In the ‘old days’ married women were allowed breakfast in bed and I’m all for bringing back this tradition, if only for one week of the year when it might actually be a possibility. What could be nicer than going back to bed with a huge pot of tea, boiled eggs and soldiers to read your book and have a lazy morning? Bliss.
Do you remember when we would get on planes like buses and pop off for the weekend to somewhere warm?Gosh that seems like another lifetime now but in lieu of actual travel, I have been escaping into books about far-away places. It’s not quite as good as actually being there but almost. A Princess Remembers by Gayatri Devi describes the life of one of India’s most elegant and powerful women and Travels on my Elephant by Mark Shand is about the relationship between Mark and his elephant Tara.
Once you’re up, run a bath with a generous glug of something aromatic whilst listening to old episodes of Desert Island Discs on BBC Sounds or a great podcast: Grounded with Louis Theroux and How to Fail with Elizabeth Day have been my favourites of late.
As staying in has become the new going out, make a night of it and light the fire and some candles and have supper on a tray to watch movies and box sets and then get cosy under a cashmere blanket.The nicest (and biggest!) are from Rose Uniacke and Josephine Home. As a particularly cold-blooded person, you will find me in front of the fire lying on a sheepskin much like a dog for all the colder months of the year.
I do believe that part of fostering an optimistic attitude for the year ahead is planning. Obviously, it’s difficult to do this with any great certainty at the present moment but if you have a garden you can spend a quiet morning going through seed catalogues and imagining a cutting garden or vegetable patch that you might make or ordering old English roses from David Austin Roses. Spend time booking some on-line courses or take up needlepoint, something which I find incredibly soothing and almost meditative.
After the indulgence of Christmas you might want to reach for a calming infusion with some raw manuka honey. Part of being kind to ourselves means re-booting the body with vitamins and supplements, eating well and taking some exercise (even if it is a mad dash to the corner shop to get some more Bendicks Bittermints).
And if the dark days are really too much for you, just remember that the days are getting longer and by the second week of February, it will be light in the mornings. Hurrah!
Joanna’s recommendations:
www.volgalinen.com
www.roseuniacke.com
www.josephinehome.co.uk
ww.buy.smnovella.eu
www.ehrmantapestry.com
www.davidaustinroses.co.uk
www.nealsyardremedies.com
www.wilderbotanics.com