It's the weekend already!

TV, a forgotten artist remembered, eggs, candles and magazines as a treat again

And here we are, at the weekend again. I’m not sorry but they seem to be coming around with a regularity that makes me think of a small child on a merry-go-round, the kind who needs to be clapped and acknowledged each time they go past.

The White Lotus is over and, for all its flaws, I enjoyed the once-a-week destination viewing of it, the feeling that we were all watching the same thing at the same time. This series was too languorously paced (what’s wrong with me? everything is too fast or too slow), but I did laugh at the speech by Parker Posey’s character in the final episode, on the duty of the very rich to revel in their privilege: ‘The least we can do is enjoy it. If we don’t, it’s offensive.’ Obvs, vast chasms between the rich and everyone else is not OK but in some ways, I agree with her. If there’s good stuff, I want it to be appreciated, not hidden away. If we see but cannot have whatever the lusted after thing is, we can cope, not least of all because we do not want the same things. I would not enjoy a penthouse on the 300^th floor of a tower in Dubai, or a bright orange Maserati on Park Lane, or unlimited access to a plastic surgeon (I’d look like Catwoman within the year). But for things I would enjoy, read on.

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If you are in London before May 3, take a trip to the Alison Jacques gallery on Cork Street (behind the Royal Academy), to see a small-but-perfect exhibition of the work of Maeve Gilmore. Gilmore (1917-1983) was, in her lifetime, better known for being married to the genius Mervyn Peake, artist, author and illustrator (Gormenghast, Mr Pye and the best children’s book ever: Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor). She was also the mother of my mother’s best friend, Clare. Gilmore trained at the Westminster School of Art (where she met Mervyn) and throughout a lifetime of raising her three children on Sark and then in London, while her husband descended prematurely into an unforgiving and debilitating illness, she never stopped painting. But her work was rarely exhibited. Now, almost forty years after her death, she has been reappraised to great critical acclaim. Her paintings are simple, bold, full of highly personal symbolism and some Surreal elements. I was very taken by these pears, which I had never seen before. I’d love to see them hanging on a sunny kitchen wall.

The gallery has done a brilliant reproduction on its walls of the elaborate murals Gilmore painted all over her house, which I remember going to as a little girl. There were dancers leaping up the stairs and tigers weaving through tall grass in the bedroom. On canvas, she painted her children and her cats, all of whom she adored, but she also illustrated the torn feelings she had between the necessity of domestic labours and her drive to paint. If you want to know more about Gilmore, please read my friend’s beautiful memoir about her upbringing, Under A Canvas Sky by Clare Peake. (Dylan Thomas was her babysitter, if not a very reliable one.)

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Afterwards, I went into Selfridges food hall and bought vast, delicious meringues for £1.59 each – six of them, each one given its own paper bag, and all put into another big paper bag with handles, the whole thing voluminous and yet weighing nothing. Heaven. I lusted after the Easter treats in there – clever, surprising and sensational-looking chocolate eggs, boxes of colourful candies, everything from Kinder to Rococo. And although some of the eggs in there were absurd, most of them were not, easily less than £30. Like these heavenly hand-painted wooden eggs containing Booja Booja champagne truffles.

So many good presents in there: giant jars of honey with honeycombs sitting inside, every type of pasta conceivable, a whole bar dedicated to smoked fish, or Vroom Vroom coffee beans in a natty tin.

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I also went into the Diptyque shop on New Bond Street to buy a candle as I needed a decent thank you present for someone I don’t know at all and scented candles are kind of OK for everyone now, aren’t they? I hadn’t been in there before and was pleasantly surprised to find that their classic candle is £58, not £438 as I was sort of expecting (not that I would have bought it at that price!). And yes, I know, that’s a lot of money to burn, but the candles smell A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. and the thing about these places is that they do know how to make you feel prized. Everything was gorgeous to look at and the service was immaculate, no snootiness, only good manners. They gave both me and my son cologne and perfume samples after asking what scent I liked best. There’s even a sort of sitting room at the back of the shop, where you can sit down and admire the enormous candles (these ones are £290, but if I was Sir Elton John, I’d have three). We both left feeling delighted and spoilt, and the present we had bought wasn’t even for us!

P.S. The other wondrous candles are made by La Montaña, £39 from Cotton & Cologne. This one makes your house smell like a hot summer’s night in St Tropez.

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The Lady closed its doors this week, so we won’t be reading that anymore, if you ever did in the first place. For my American readers, this determinedly old-fashioned magazine, which began in 1885, was largely used to place small ads for housekeepers and nannies. I went for the editor’s job, shortly after the owner’s son Ben Budworth had taken it over in 2008. We had a very funny interview, walking through the cavernous building in Covent Garden, an absolute warren of small rooms crammed with desks and, he said, people who hadn’t had to justify their jobs for decades and were now terrified. He told me that after he’d been there for a fortnight, he opened what he thought was a cupboard door and a man leaped up, introducing himself as the marketing manager. Two whole weeks of the new boss and he hadn’t even made himself apparent! I didn’t get the job but when it was given to Rachel Johnson and she turned up on the first day with a Channel 4 film crew, I completely understood why.

For years and years, I went off magazines – partly PTSD from working on them, I think – but now that Jane Bruton has taken up the helm at Good Housekeeping, I’m back to picking one up as a treat with a cup of tea. Bruton launched Grazia, so she knows her glam glossies, and has brought this touch to GH, but sensibly not swept out the stuff that it’s good at (recommending useful things for house and garden). Lots of great writers here that you’ll recognise: Hannah Betts, Anniki Sommerville, James Brown (former ed of Loaded), Shane Watson, Matthew d’Ancona…With this sort of encouragement, perhaps we’ll return to reading paper IRL, like Gen Zers posing with books.

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That’s it, folks. Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed it, please let me know with a click on the heart. I’m off to faff in the garden. Have a gorgeous weekend.