I’ve recently realised that I’ve spent the last couple of months slowly easing into my summer persona - do you have a summer persona? This seasonal personality transition is a recent occurrence - i.e. the last six or so years but I’m beginning to recognise a slow metamorphosis that begins around mid May and results in a late June butterfly exiting the cocoon in nautical stripes and denim cut-offs. My warm weather guise feels like a salted blend of Coastal Grandmother/Beatnik, studious reader, earthy elegance, countryside homebody, chic desert aunt and bonafide beach bum.* Not to sound too dramatic but it feels like a wildness takes over - in spirit, mood and body. The urge to spend time in nature, a change in vibes of how I want to dress, shoes become an evil necessity, hair is more tangled than tousled… and I care a lot less about the realms of what is considered appropriate… for everything. It feels like seasonal living at its best and comes with a feral mood - a feeling I wish I could bottle and imbibe throughout the year - maybe I’m having my own feral girl summer.

Since last summer it’s been a reflective year, giving cause to ponder the things that really matter - what can I jettison, how should our home make us feel in this life chapter and most importantly, how do we want to spend the precious time that stretches ahead. I don’t mean to get all Mary Oliver on you but that quote that questions how you plan to spend your one wild and precious life seems to ring truer with every passing year. That and the “always evolving” tattoo on my inner arm that I acquired a few rebellious hot summers ago.

Anyhoo… with all that navel gazing serving as a partial explanation for my blogging absence since last August, I’ve decided that the way back in should be via the magic of a seasonal mood board. To quote a gazillion New England coastal Reels (I’ve put in the research so you don’t have to), my inner Coastal Grandmother has well and truly defrosted and is kicking up her Birkenstock clad heels on a romanticising life rampage. Whilst these descriptives are just more of those “cores” and “aesthetics” coined by the La-La world of social media, they also happen to fit nicely with my whole personality. Also serving as a reminder that when life feels challenging, it’s more important than ever to find joy in all the possible moments. A habit of mine that Mr Start now refers to as me “Nancy Meyers’ing the shit out of life”. Try it - it works.

To help illustrate the point - as well as posting copious sea dips, blousy hydrangeas and slices of lemon drizzle cake atop blue china plates over on Instagram - I’ve found the process of compiling one monster of a mood board to be both highly therapeutic and an effective note to self. So for your perusal, over a slow coffee in a chinoiserie mug of course, below you’ll find a selection of Pinterest images from the mood board that is now my screensaver, interwoven with pieces you might want to Add To Basket to inspire a coastal vibe summer wherever you are…

In the same way I consider myself vintage, I’m increasingly drawn to collecting things for our home that have been around a while and/or have a story. At the very least they need to have a quirk so whether its Spode china or the odd piece of coastal kitsch, I’m here for it - I see you lobster plate. If you want to know what a Coastal Grandmother smells like then get yourself to Jo Malone and buy anything from the English Pear and Freesia line. This is my personal view and not a marketing strategy echoed by the brand, but I’m sure if you could sniff Meryl in It’s Complicated, she would smell like the hand wash I have in my kitchen - my favourite small luxury. The hand wash - not sniffing Meryl. Oh and in regard to the aforementioned tanned legs, I’ve come to rely on Tan Luxe - The Gradual to even out summer colour. My arms are tanned by the sun by June but I can’t sit still in hot weather and so the legs end up woefully lacking. Enter this stuff applied once a week in the evening (mornings are for covering my thighs in Oestrogel), and the legs are subtly brown. It smells good, dries in about two minutes and does not transfer onto sheets. Why it’s taken me until the age of 56 to discover this I don’t know but I’ve done the (pale) leg work for you.

As we continue on with the redecoration/re-jigging of the living room (there are whole other reams of posts on that topic), we’ve realised that a good descriptor of the vibe would be our spin on a subtle coastal vibe that encompasses elements of Pacific Natural sprinkled with touches of that Nancy Meyers interiors magic. But, as per the repeated requests from Mr Start, we should stay on the side of Amanda Woods’ home in The Holiday rather than that of George Banks in Father Of The Bride. He has a point - I do have a tendency to get carried away when let loose after ten years with a redecorating idea. Enter the need for subtle accents then - cushions in a Toile de Jouy fabric, lots of natural textures, white hydrangeas and the occasional piece of chinoiserie. Whilst the hydrangeas continue to bloom in the garden, they are not for cutting so I stand by these from The Suffolk Nest as the most realistic I’ve ever seen. I added my own stems to some faux eucalyptus stems, willow and ranunculus and put them in this ginger jar vase - you can see how it turned out in this post.

This past year has found me a convert to LL Bean’s Boat & Tote (how did it take this long?), adding a scarf for outfit quirk when I get bored, hours spent scratching my head over possible gallery wall permutations and still keeping an eye out for what constitutes the perfect white summer dress. That last one remains a permanent fixture in my brain and I’ve grown to accept that I’m prone to give this kind of sartorial subject more fixation than perhaps your average person might. I’m wondering if this Boden offering might fit the bill? On a similar note, who knew that jeans of just the right slouch, hue, length and state of dishevelment could look so good with summer tanned toes? Research on that also continues… alongside a unhealthy fixation on enamel jugs…

*A glossary of the social media Cores and Aesthetics I am here for… the rest I scroll on past…

Coastal Grandmother - I wrote about it here when I first brought to my attention in spring 2022. Like a Nancy Meyers movie from whence it originated, it’s proving to be timeless.

Coastal Beatnik - she’s more edgy than CG and here’s an excellent Substack piece on her, including some links to good TikToks on the subject. I’m totally on board with the whole “salt-skinned dreamer” vibe.

Earthy Elegance - Tik Tok’r @itsmadelineslone nails this with her inspiration montages. It has to be said this is the only kind of TT viewing I’m drawn to. That and anything by Allison Bornstein…

Which brings me onto Chic Desert Aunt - a style persona works of genius created by stylist Allison. This Instagram post explains it all and I think CDA might be a relative of mine…

The mood board I see when my computer flickers into life in the morning…