The Last 5 Things I Bought...

Well. Apparently I was way out on my overall scoring when it came to my Ikos Olivia review. I gave the holiday a 7/10, because I was trying to be balanced - it wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t great - but Rich says that it needed to be a four.

A four!

Some of his own (more choice) descriptions of the place included “it was an expensive prison” and “the food was mass-produced microwave crap”. He followed up the latter with “and I like a lot of crap food so for me to say it’s bad, it must be bad.”

Oh dear. Perhaps he should have written the review. I did start with the disclaimer that I much prefer raving about things to ranting about them. Which segues nicely into the latest edition of “the last five things I bought”, which, refreshingly, contains only amazing and successful purchases. Hurrah!

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Appointed 2026 Planner

Don’t let the 2026 panic you, I’m just being extra-organised this year because usually I leave it too late to buy my planner and then I have to phone up Papersmiths in Brighton (the only UK stockist) and beg them to find their last remaining Appointed Task Planner, which is no mean feat because these planners always sell out.

I don’t know what it is about this particular bit of stationery that just makes my brain work so well, but if I don’t have it in front of me, with all of the day’s jobs written out in Bic Medium Ballpoint pen, then I simply can’t function properly. I go off on tangents. I open Instagram and spend three hours wondering why people love Birkin bags so much when to my eye they look so rigid and annoying to carry about. Or I start Googling how many grams of protein I really need in a day, not the amount that social media tells me I need, which seems to be about the same as a twenty-five year-old heavyweight champion.

The point is, is, I digress without some kind of paper schedule. And the Appointed Task Planner, with its just-perfect page proportions (days of the week on the left page; tick-box tasks, notes and priorities on the right) is the best I’ve ever found at keeping me on track and, weirdly, more motivated.

I think this must be my eighth year with Appointed? I can imagine I’ll be with them for life.

I buy my Appointed planner at Papersmiths here - you can order from the US and they have more versions and colourways, but the shipping is pricey.

Dior Pacific Sunglasses

This was a risk: buying expensive sunglasses at an airport. What if I’d changed my mind? Cripes. Thankfully I love these sunglasses more than any I’ve ever bought, apart from the Polaroid ones I got in 2010, but those are now so scratched that I can’t see out of them and one of the arms melted when I left it too close to a pizza oven.

No, the Dior Pacific (linked here) are as close to shades perfection as I think I’ve ever come. I feel like a tosser in most of them, if I’m honest, so much so that it has to be forty degrees and the sort of brightness you’d only experience on the surface of the sun for me to even consider putting them on. I feel as though I’ve got ideas above my station if I wear them needlessly - as though I’m pretending to be Mariah Carey or similar.

I think because these are pinkish they don’t look so stark against my face, and they feel a little “Lady Penelope” and fun and 1950s and, I don’t know, Beverly Hills Hotel, and despite the humungous branding down the arms there’s something vaguely unpretentious about them. Jolly.

They are here - breathtakingly pricey I’m afraid but (top tip) if you buy sunglasses at the airport then the cost doesn’t actually count. Same as anything bought at the airport, actually, including magazines, holiday hats and Prosecco at 11.30am.

ModiBodi Period Pants

Over the past few years I’ve become increasingly enamoured with period pants. I think that they are a fantastic invention and, if you’ll excuse the TMI element of the next paragraph, I’ll tell you why.

I have very erratic periods. Not as in irregular - they arrive in a timely manner - it’s just that when they arrive they just cannot make up their mind whether they are coming or going. You might have the same. Mine have always been rather scant, but scant is always the worst scenario because you still need to use something, but 80% of the time you end up disposing of sanitary products that have barely been needed in the first place.

This is where the period pants really come into their own, for me (please don’t say moon cup to me, I am not a fan!), because you just stick them in the wash and it doesn’t matter a jot whether you had an unexpected full flow or absolutely zero sign of anything whatsoever.

I feel as though this subject needs a full blog post, so do let me know in the comments if you fancy one, but if you have periods that taper off for ages, or are scant, or are just all over the bloody shop, period pants could be for you. They really are mega-absorbent (I mean, they have different absorbencies, but the heavy ones hold something ridiculous like twenty-thousand tampons’ worth of blood) and so you don’t have to fear any leakages, but for me they are invaluable when I’m a) working from home, which is most of the time, and I can just wear them without having to worry about checking to see whether my period has decided to go away for good or linger on, and b) at night as extra protection when flow is very, very heavy.

Many will have been there. The 3am blood bath on Piglet linen sheets. NOT IF YOU INVEST IN SOME PERIOD PANTS!

I stocked up in the ModiBodi sale. I’ve bought from this brand before and like them a lot. And 40% off was too good to walk away from. And I bought jazzy colours so that I can smile through my period like one of those demented women from the 1990s Bodyform ads.

Next Side Table

Oh. My little side table seems very unexciting after that period pant meander! But it has been an unexpected success, I am very pleased with it.

I needed a side table in a hurry (had to take interiors photos) and I scoured the internet and this little brass and mango wood one popped up on Next. I don’t think I’d realised before that Next did furniture, I checked because they always do such fast delivery on stuff, and lo and behold not only did they do side tables, they could deliver next day! I think it was around eleven hours from order to delivery, which has to be some kind of fluke.

Anyway, consider me impressed. It looks perfect, too, up there in the cabin. I had considered an old, rustic milking stool (you know the rickety gnarled three-legged things that you see at flea markets?) but I wondered whether it would look a bit too literal in my rustic wooden cabin. I’m glad I went for something a little smarter.

The table is here online.

Rode Mini Mics.

Well these have been a revelation! I know it’s kind of niche, because how many normal people need microphones on a day-to-day basis, but I am repeatedly astounded by just how quickly technology is leaping forward; that you can get teeny microphones that magnet-clip onto your jumper, and suddenly your video footage sounds as though it’s been filmed by a proper team with a man holding a boom and wearing huge headphones. For a under a hundred quid. (I bought mine here.)

And, if you film out of the proper cameras on your iPhone (the ones in the cluster at the back), you can make it look as though your video has been filmed on one of those huge cameras that has to be moved around on a track like a mini rollercoaster.

Ah, progress. Let’s ignore the fact that AI-controlled robo-beings will probably take over the planet in the next decade, forcing us all to be their servants and/or do all of the maths questions they get wrong. At least we’ll have good quality cameras to capture it all on - and live-streaming!

Hey guys, so I’m hiding in my basement right now, I don’t know whether you can hear the commotion up there but basically, guys, my Alexa Dot has emptied my bank accounts, changed the deeds of the house into her name and hired four huge men to come and evict me….