Back to school but not for me
Its a good time to revisit this post talking about September 2012 - a time of much glamour and excitement for the White Family. This year my September is not so exciting but is that such a bad thing?
So this is a little break from renovation tales for a week - tho I am illustrating with a pic of my renovated London home officer the last week or so just writing email newsletters seemed a little ‘light’ so I had a week off. But after the initial shock, the subsequent sadness and grief has been played out with almost a concurrent wave of optimism - a new King, new Prince of Wales and a feeling that the royal family had been planning for this and were prepared so we should be too. Mourn AND look forward and carry on.
September is traditionally a time of change. A new royal monarch is a large change but metaphorically and physically this IS the time of year when we look to reinvent. We get a new pencil case and some school shoes so perhaps September 2022 is just one of the biggest change of season ever?
The French have a word for it - La Rentree and as the temperature drops and the nights get darker earlier, this feels like a more fitting term than our juvenile ‘back to school’.
I wrote this blog post a year after the events it chronicles and as I read it now - ten years on - it feels quite literally a world away. Going to fashion shows and taking my children to TV shows were how my life played out back then and it was FUN - I’m not going to lie. I can scarcely believe that ever was my life but in some ways thats why it is nice to look back. No point in being maudlin abut the fact that this week a trip to TK Maxx on my local high street is my fashion highlight. I loved the incredible life my job gave me for over 10 years and count myself fortunate to have done something that didn’t feel like ‘work’ for the bulk of my 20s and 30s.
But this September for the first time in 30 years I have literally no job to go back to. On the plus side there was no back to work holiday blues as I have no work. I came back from holiday and on my first Monday back watched some Lingo and Escape to the Country. And while it is nice to be able do this (tho some of those Escape to the Countries are so old they are practically house hunting in Wessex) I think it has highlighted the need for ‘something’ to give my life some structure. It doesn’t have to be flying to New York to the Marc Jacobs show but it needs to be something that brings me joy not just a paycheck.
Interestingly in this blog I talk about my friend Richard’s stint on Strictly Come Dancing which I know remains one of the best things he has ever done - ALL contestants say this but rather than feel sad each year when a new cohort don those sequins and heels - I know he always just counts himself luckyy that he got to do it at all - otherwise we’d all be wanting to win glitter balls every year and NOTHING would ever match up.
And so I’m planning and talking and doing some work and writing and helping friends with their interiors and I’m finishing off renovating my London house. And maybe by next September I’ll be rentree-ing somewhere else but for now I’m trying to enjoy the change of pace and look at everything as an opportunity. Our new King Charles III is facing a massive career shift at the age of 73 so who knows what lies ahead for me?
Blog post first published in 2013 La Rentree
It might be time for a post about my London life. I’ve kept these to a minimum as I wanted to paint a picture of bucolic, shabby chic life in France. But its important to show the dichotomy every now and then. If only to underline why I love being at my French home so much. It really is an escape from a slightly bonkers London life I have inadvertently created for myself and my family. A life that on paper/instagram/facebook looks quite, well, glamorous. But the truth of the matter is – its really just stuff. Normal stuff to me and my boys, maybe not normal to others but no better for it. My happiest times, hand on heart are hanging out in France where the most exciting person I run into is Madame Bertini next door with the news that her hens have laid fresh eggs – whoo hoo pain perdu all round!!
The French have an expression ‘La Rentree’ which is that time in September that we would call ‘back to school’. And the end of my summers really do feel like that. Flip flops are abandoned in favour of uncomfortable heels, I make a trip to Hershesons to get my roots done, nails re shellaced, and I try and remember what the hell I wear to work (cos it isn’t denim cut offs and a silly straw hat – that much I do know – there is an entire gallery devoted to what I wear to work on company.co.uk should anyone care!)
So first up this Rentree was London Fashion Week which passes in a blur of shows, parties and stressing about where you’re sitting and what you’re wearing. And for the Top Shop Unique show Seb came along…..
And then Arthur and I went to X Factor and as, over the years I’ve got to know the lovely presenter of Xtra Factor, Caroline Flack pretty well, she swept us off to the dressing room area to meet Olly Murs – see, I told you this is no normal back to school September for the White Family….
But the thing that meant this year was to be probably our most exciting London Rentree yet was the still, arm pinchingly ‘really?’ fact that Uncle Richard landed a place as a celebrity dancer on Strictly Come Dancing. He was in talks quite early on, so we had been sworn to secrecy and pledged not to tell the children as they might then blurt it out at school. But in our first weekend back in London we went over for lunch and it was confirmed. Uncle Richard would be donning sequins and walking down those stairs to dance under a glitterball on primetime Saturday night TV.
It may sound silly as we are all used to Uncle Richard being on TV – he’s been a fixture on the GMTV then Daybreak sofa for over a decade. Arthur has even made his own GMTV appearance when he played on his Nintendo on the sofa only looking up to say ‘Hi Mum, Dad and Sebastian” while Ben Sheppard tried to talk him away from Super Mario Bros – unsuccessfully. But we sort of forget that Uncle Richard is actually, well, famous. But now it was unavoidable. This is Saturday night TV – that families huddle around their TV to watch and Ladbrokes take bets on. Once the boys could tell people at school their teachers were excited, dinner ladies over the moon and my various god-daughters and all our friends pledged to wave goodbye to Saturday nights out and instead sit on the phone voting for Uncle Rich!
As it turned out he did much better than any of us expected (sorry Rich… but you know we figured three or four weeks tops) and he was still there sparring with Craig Revel Horwood by the time the dancers and their celeb partners get to go to Wembley and so I went too. You can see me on TV sitting behind Lee Mead, Denise Van Outen’s husband. And as luck would have it, this also became the week Richard was voted out. Luck because he had done so well and it was lovely that I was there for his final week and a huge glitterball last dance. In fact, there was nothing to do but celebrate.
He’d done amazingly well, but the end of his Strictly run meant we had our Uncle Richard back for Sunday lunching and Friday nighting (as his training schedule had pretty much taken him out of our lives for the best part of six weeks) and so, along with his other godson and his family who luckily we’re super close to (hi Vicky!!!) we went out for a big, long, slightly drunken Sunday lunch to celebrate our own familial Rentree.