Keeping Calm and Carrying On

And reading my way through the confusion

• ☕ Room & Rumours, Edinburgh. Unlike the cake shop I told you about last week, Room & Rumours is a relatively new favourite of mine: it is a donutterie. That is, they specialise in doughnuts filled with the most incredible flavours. In the winter lockdown at the start of 2021, I used to walk over there on a weekend day, get a coffee and doughnut, and find somewhere outdoors nearby to sit and enjoy them. When we were allowed to meet friends again, I’d do that with other people. It’s a good 35-40 minute walk from my flat, so it used up a nice chunk of a lockdown weekend day, and felt like a good balance. Click through to their Instagram for temptation and to see the daily fillings.

• 📚 Trouble by Lex Croucher. I was lucky enough to get my copy of this book early, at Lighthouse Bookshop’s First Date Romance Book Festival. And then I devoured it in one sitting, pretty much. I really enjoyed Lex’s previous two adult romance books, and this one was their best yet. It’s written very much for people who find someone rolling up their sleeves to be the sexiest thing you can do, and I love how much historical detail Lex weaves into their utterly irreverent and raucous fiction. (Bookshop.org | Amazon - affiliate links) 

•  🎧 Lofi Girl playlists. Unsurprisingly, between the house move and being four weeks into a new job, I’ve got a lot on my mind lately. While normally I love having film soundtrack music on in the background while I work or write, I’ve needed to take everything down a level to reduce the number of things going on. Cue Lofi Girl, originally a streaming YouTube channel and now also a Spotify profile with a bunch of playlists full of lofi music perfect for focussing, reading, and relaxing. In particular, I’ve been putting on the Sleep Lofi playlist with a timer to help me get to sleep at night.

I’m writing this earlier in the week than usual; when it lands in your mailboxes, I will be surrounded by packed boxes and mostly-empty shelves and cupboards. So, although I want to write about how bizarre this summer’s weather is, and the fact that Europe is literally on fire while I’m sitting here in August wearing a thermal base layer, and how frustrating and terrifying it is that our governments don’t seem to be doing anything that doesn’t speed up our inevitable demise… I won’t.

Instead, I’m going to recommend to you all some of my favourite newsletters to read here on Substack. As I was telling a friend this morning, the Substack app has replaced a Google-Reader-shaped hole in my internet habits, and has given me a much healthier place to go when I’m itching to scroll social media. But as it only really becomes useful when you read more than a handful of Substack newsletters, I thought I’d share some of the ones I like to read.