Hello,
Welcome to this week’s newsletter.
It suddenly feels like Spring has sprung here.
We’ve had a lovely busy, social time over the last few days. Imbolc was magical - we received the most incredible box of goodies from some wonderful friends. There was a bridie doll made from rushes for Iris to decorate, a handwoven willow bird feeder, a beeswax candle and plenty more delicious treats inside. So blessed!
At work, we’re deep into Natural Beauty Awards 2025 - gorgeous products are piling in. You can find out more here.
Next week we’ll launch our Beauty Testers’ Club, which I’ll post more about in next Friday’s newsletter and give you some more info in case you want to join us!
Today we've been out on the cliffs to honour my mum - read more below. This amazing photo was taken by Miry Giramondo.
Here’s What We’ve Been Up to
Late Night Reading!
I loved Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, which I read in one night this week - I couldn’t put it down. The central character is a woman struggling to be taken seriously as a chemist in the heavily male-dominated world of 1950s America. She experiences sexual abuse, dismissal and theft of her work before rising out on top, carving out a space for herself, and challenging the status quo. There’s a great canine character too, called Six Thirty, who is super astute. The ending was a little too neat and sweet for me, but it’s an excellent read.
Angela Harding’s Still Waters, Wild Waves is a gorgeous diary of a year on the water, illustrated with Angela’s lino prints and photographs. In it she shares observations of all the animals she spots from trips to Fair Isle in the Shetlands, to St. Martin’s in the Scilly Isles. It’s a lush book.
My sister lent me The Burning by Laura Bates; it’s a young adult title about misogyny, bullying and the dangers of social media, especially for young women. It’s a clever book, which interweaves the story of Maggie, a young woman persecuted in Medieval Scotland, and a contemporary teen caught in a horrible sexting situation, for which she is blamed and shamed. Hard, but compelling read - another book I had to finish in one go!
