I usually spend weekends splitting my time between writing and emailing from my nest of a bed, the park for a spot of dog walking and, hmmm, that’s about it. So imagine my horror  surprise when I realised I had three consecutive things going on last Saturday. Thank goodness they were three things I really wanted to do. SoI press-ganged Rachel into attendance, and off we went…

First up was a brunch workshop at La Fromagerie on Moxon Street in Marylebone with the lovely Tori Haschka, Sydney born food & travel writer, whose blog www.eatori.com has charted her global food adventures. Here is a woman who has travelled as much as I have: from New York to San Francisco via Iowa, from Berlin to Bilbao, Cairo, Rome, Reykjavik, Morocco, Bologna, Venice, Val d’Isere to Stockholm. Tori’s first book ‘A Suitcase and a Spatula’ is out now, hence the La Fromagerie event.

Squeezed cheerfully into a corner of the store, we kicked off with strong coffee served with Tori’s Latte Banana Bread made with Le Piantagioni Coffee,  paired with whipped ricotta.

Then it was onto Iceland, to eat Tori’s version of Blueberry Skyr: a cinnamon & almond gluten free crumbled biscuit, layered with blueberries, blueberry puree, & creamy Greek yoghurt standing in for the Icelandic Skyr.

Next up was my favourite: Tori’s Tartine of Roast Red Grapes & Walnuts (at top). La Fromagerie owner, and all round cheese supremo, Patricia Michelsen made the Labne which formed the base of the topping, and explained to us just how she made it, using yogurt from Waitrose down the road (because she wanted to see if she could replicate her normal labne with ingredients we could all get our hands on).

The twist on an Australian  class: Pea, Basil & Feta Fritters with Roasted Tomatoes. These were a close runner up to the tartines.

Thank you Tori, for a delightful brunch. DO check out her A Suitcase and a Spatula’: it’s a wonderful voyage around food, places, and Tori’s head.

(Pre-vacuumed bags of tights, hats & gloves, woolly sweaters)

My London flat is perfectly Sasha-sized, but it does have one flaw:  there is barely any storage. It’s all on one level, so there’s no under stair cupboard for stashing STUFF, and there are only a few above head height cupboards in the living room.

So, each spring, I pack away all my winter clothes so I can actually see my summer stuff. Although this year I’m doing this much, much later than normal, as I couldn’t bear to be parted from my tights, gloves, heavy sweaters, scarves and Heat Tech undies until now.

Thing is winter clothes are so bulky that storing it all presents a real problem, so I invested in lots of vacuum bags from Argos, my favourite purveyor of random things for the home.

(They’ve got a great deal on at the moment £12.99 for eight, half the normal price of £25.99).

It really is incredible how you can shrink everything down. That tall bag, shot side on, contains my huge waxed Hilfiger parka, and FIVE woollen winter coats. So goodbye winter kit for a few months.

(Euf. Am depressing myself at the thought that in about four months I’ll be unpacking the lot in preparation for the next eight month winter.)

Easi-Vac 8 Piece Vacuum Storage Bag Set.£

My hair is somewhat of a disaster at the moment. It badly needs a cut and a colour perk-up, but I just haven’t had the time  - or rather when I have had, I’ve chosen to nap. Napping is my favourite activity, bar none. Maybe someone could  invent a hairdressing station that let you have a quick prone kip whilst your hair was done. I’d so be into that.

So, whilst I am waiting for a gap to magically appear in my schedule where I’m perky enough not to want to nap, I’m making do with Toni & Guy Glamour Serum Drops, which make blow dried hair look all shiny, and stop those frizzy flyaways that happen when you need a trim and the ends of your hair look like they’ve been attacked with a blunt razor. (I’m pretty sure it’s mainly silicone, but whatever it is, it works.)

I’m not sure where this bottle came from. I think maybe a London Fashion Week goodie bag,  but I’ve had it for a while now: You only need a drop, so it’s better value than the size might imply.

Toni & Guy Glamour Serum Drops £7.19

Those of you with highly acute memories will remember that Matt Rudd has contributed to this ‘ere blog before. You may also remember that I have referred to him as a ‘friend’. I could of course let slip the information that we met for the very first time when he was an intern at the magazine where I worked many years ago.  But I wouldn’t do that. Ahem.

Of course now, far too many years later, Mr Rudd is All Grown Up, Senior Writer at The Sunday Times, no less, married to the divine H, AND with three children. But most, importantly, for the purposes of this post, he is the author of a most excellent and interesting new book about the habits of the English.

As there is little we English love more than seeing our habits dissected in print, I predict great things for this, his newest baby, and am only too happy to let Mr Rudd take over LLG for the day…(he would like me to point out that although this extract deals with duvets, his book deals with many more English obsessions, from dogging (really) to ready meals…)

PS Do buy his book. Available here, and from all good bookshops

Dear Sasha,

Thank you for letting me, a man, and not a stylish one at that, invade your glamorous blog. Rather than catwalk on and talk about Ralph or Calvin or, umm, Sergio, I’m going to tell you about my duvet career in this exclusive, adapted and highly unstylish extract from the bedroom chapter of my new book, The English: a Field Guide.

“Last November, I discovered Stage Three of the Duvet Transition Model. Until last November, I didn’t even know it existed. I thought there were just two. The bachelor stage (when your mum goes with you to the shops and you buy something highly flammable and entirely unbreathable but durable enough to get you through your wild and carefree twenties) and the settling down stage (when The One insists the bachelor duvet must leave because it reminds her of The Other Ones).

Stage three when the honeymoon is well and truly over. It is the stage where you realise that the most important thing going on in the bedroom and possibly life is a good night’s sleep. You have already got the right number of pocket-sprung springs in your mattress. You have thousands of Egyptians counting in your sheets. Now it all comes down to the type of goose.

‘Is it that really important?’ I ask Julie from the department store. Julie is an expert. She has even been to the factory where they make the duvets. She can personally vouch for the quality.

‘It does make a difference and they really are fantastic quality,’ says Julie.

‘I’m sure that’s the case, Julie. But what I’m worried about is the goose. What is the difference between the winter snow goose, the Siberian snow goose and the Hungarian non-snow goose?’

‘The winter snow geese are harder to find,’ she says. This is interesting but not that helpful. I don’t want to be paying an arm and a leg for a duvet because it was harder to get the geese into it, although I do appreciate the effort. The winter snow goose lives in the remote Altai Mountains, an inhospitably glacial environment on the borders of Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Imagine the goose’s surprise when a man from John Lewis turns up with a big net and a pair of eyebrow-pluckers.

‘Right. But in terms of user experience?’

‘It’s the loft.’

‘The loft?’

‘Yes, the loft.’

Right. The loft. Fill power. Fluffiness, basically. Fill a duvet with duck down and it’ll be heavy and warm or thin and not so warm. Fill it with the innermost coat of an Altai Mountain snow goose and it will be warm and thin.

Wife and I discussed this intoxicating prospect for maybe a month: the pros (‘but it will be so light and yet warm, darling’), the cons (‘how will it make the Hungarian geese feel?’/‘it’s only a bloody duvet’). And then we bought it anyway using the sort of levels of money that could have gone towards a new mountain bike, a filthy weekend in Paris or a flock of pet geese. And it is very light and very, very warm. Far too warm, in fact, for anything that isn’t (a) a goose and (b) an inhabitant of the Altai Mountains.”

Do buy his book. Available here, and from all good bookshops

Two weeks ago I travelled to Paris to visit the No.5 Culture CHANEL exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo. To celebrate the exhibition I am giving away this this fabulous 1950s CHANEL No 5 advertisement from my own collection.

As you may have seen from my post earlier in the year, the wonderful annual Foire des Livres at Angles sure L’Anglin serves up many covetable treasures, amongst which can be found boxes of vintage advertisements from contemporary periodicals. Last year I came home with a fabulous 1950s Schiap illustration, and this fabulous 1950s CHANEL No 5 advertisement, which I am now going to give away here on the blog.

To go with the advertisement, I am also, with CHANEL’s permission, giving away a copy of the limited edition catalogue for the No.5 Culture CHANEL exhibition, which is only available at the Palais de Tokyo.

Simply leave a comment below and/or on the LLG Facebook page to tell me which Chanel fragrance is your favourite. We’ll put together all the entries, and randomly choose one winner for both items which  we’ll announce in a fortnight or so. Since this is pretty lightweight, the giveaway is open to readers worldwide. (Although obviously I can’t be held responsible for the vagaries of the postal service.)

T&Cs: This is not a sponsored giveaway (these are my own items). There is no monetary equivalent. No correspondence will be entered into.