Stuff I want to tell my sister
One year on...
I stopped writing Nesting about a year ago, because my sister died and everything fell apart. I’ve written to her every day since then. The file on my laptop is called Dear Lulu (everyone’s nickname for her) and it’s about 50,000 words long now. A year’s worth of death and grief spilled out onto the page. A lifeline for me.
I told her how sorry I was that she never got to eat the packet of Rolos she’d requested a few hours before she died. I told her about her nephew – Milo – who I gave birth to the day after her funeral. I told her about a text message I saw from her son saying, “What’s it like up there in heaven mummy?! See you there in 1-150 years!”
One day I found my four year-old looking for his doctor’s kit so that he could “fix her heart,” and so I wrote to her about that. I let her know when their dog was put down and about Dad’s cancer scare and I told her how increasingly I felt I was in that round on Gladiators called Gauntlet where the contestants have to run through a tunnel while various people try to smash them in the face.
But I also wrote to her about all the other stuff. Like how Idris Elba had moved in down the road, how her kitchen renovation ended up and how Trump nearly got assassinated. I asked her how on earth I’d only just discovered The Split and how much I thought Stephen Mangan looked like her husband. When I bought an amazing pair of jeans from M&S, I let her know. I told her how everyone I know is now peri-menopausal and that I’m wondering if I am, too.
I hope if she is ever reading this stuff over my shoulder as I sit at my kitchen table crying and laughing like a mad woman that she’s laughed and cried with me – but I also hope that she’s taken the piss and corrected my grammar as she always used to.
Anyway, that brings me to now. February. One year on, I’m finally feeling the urge to write this newsletter again. I’ve realised I write to feel heard and well, ghosts don’t offer much in the way of feedback. So, Nesting is being reborn. It might feel a bit different now – but that’s because I’m a bit different.
It’s good to be home.
CLOTHES STUFF
Those M&S jeans
Is M&S now the place to go for jeans, or have I just got old? I really hope it’s the former, because all three pairs of mine are now from there and have single-handed weaned me off my skinnies. These flares are my absolute favourite. Super flattering shape and they come in different lengths.
Farm Rio
A friend of mine who is considerably cooler than me said my dress had ‘Farm Rio vibes,’ the other day, so obviously I went off and googled it. Now, I am in love. The prints! The pockets! Happy-making dresses for holidays – and Spring, which is coming!
HOME COMFORTS WITH… CLOVER STROUD
Clover Stroud’s sister Nell (the founder of Gifford’s Circus) died aged 46 – the same age as my sister – and Clover wrote The Red of my Blood, a beautiful memoir about her, which I inhaled in one sitting. I was so pleased to get hold of her for my first Home Comforts interview in a year, not least because her latest book, The Giant on the Skyline (out in paperback on March 6th) is all about home, family and community.
Where do you live and how would you describe your home in three words? I live in
Washington DC at the moment, and the house itself is cosy, chaotic, colourful.
Who is at home with you? I am at home with my three younger children, Evangeline, 12, Dash, 10 and Lester, who is 8, and our dog Pablo. My elder two children, Jimmy and Dolly, are in their twenties, so they don’t live at home any more. The kids have just got back from school and are making pancakes for themselves in the kitchen which they will eat with Nutella. This sounds kind of cute, although in reality it’s pretty chaotic and noisy. If I am lucky I might get a cup of tea from Evangeline.
Current Netflix/Amazon obsession? I’m watching White Lotus, along with lots of us. It’s not gripping me as much as the first two seasons at the moment, but I’m trying to be patient, which is not something I’m especially good at.
Best home comfort meal? It’s really obvious but I love a good roast chicken with extremely simple potatoes cooked in the oven with lots of olive oil and lemon, and maybe a green salad.
Best section of the Sunday papers? I like reading the New York Times at the moment. We have it delivered to our house on a Sunday, and I’ll spread it out on the kitchen table and read every section, apart from the business section. It’s full of pretty amazing journalism.
Book currently on your bedside table? I’m reading Transit, which is part of the Rachel Cusk trilogy. I am slightly addicted to these three books. I really love the cool simplicity of the writing, which enrourages me as the reader to really see the characters, rather being told what they look like.
Background noise in your house? Since moving to Washington DC from rural Oxfordshire I’ve become accustomed to waking up to the sound of police sirens. I never heard this at home in Oxfordshire. And I swear the number of sirens has increased since Trump came into power, too, which figures, as the city feels a lot more chaotic now. Right now though, however, I can hear the kids bickering over who get to plunge their knife into the Nutella first.
Bath or shower? I love baths almost (I said almost) more than anything. So it’s been a shock here in America as our bath is tiny. It’s called a tub and that’s about right as it looks like it’s designed to fit a baby. It’s too small to stretch out in so instead I lie there with my feet against the wall opposite, feeling slightly resentful and badly missing my long bath back in England.
Favourite house scent? American bread is either really revolting, full of sugar and with the consistency of a stale burger bun, or really expensive, costing about nine dollars a loaf, so a few months after moving here I bought a bread-maker. I try and make my own bread every day, and when I set it on a timer I can wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread, which honestly is a pretty perfect smell.
My garden is…. A complete and utter mess that I’m fairly disinterested in. I have five children and someone much much older than me told me not to even bother with gardening until my youngest child was at least 16, as I had too much other young life to be nurturing without worrying about plants. That lets me off the hook for the moment at least.
How well do you know your next door neighbours? In England I knew my neighbours really well, and 18 months into living in America, I feel I’m getting to know my neighbours. It’s a process that takes time, but the kids have some good friends on our street, and watching them running between houses is one of the nicest things about moving from the countryside, where I have to drive my kids to their friends’ houses. We won’t stay in America forever, however, because I miss England too much. England will always be home.
Your favourite home from home? I really love a good independent book shop. I’m writing this in the café of my local book shop in DC, called Politics and Prose, and I come here several times a week to write. When we leave DC in the next year or so, this is the place I will miss the most.
Clover also writes a brilliant Substack - On The Way Life Feels - and you can follow her day-to-day life on Instagram, here.
BEAUTY STUFF
A night cream
I’m not a night cream sort of person – can’t be bothered. But then I went for a facial and the lady told me I was approaching the ‘‘winter of my face.” Horrifying. But it’s ok, because this SkinCeuticals stuff is a miracle worker. Honestly. It’s a lot of money but I think it actually works. Autumn face here we come!
TV STUFF
The Split
Yes yes, I know, you saw this years ago. Well, I didn’t and now I’m worried for anyone else who somehow missed it, too. A drama about divorce, families and affairs. It’s juicy but it’s warm and it’s sad and happy and all the things. Do yourself a favour and watch it from episode one. By the way, the writer of the show, Abi Morgan, has had the most extraordinary life. Her book, This is Not a Pity Memoir is also absolutely brilliant.
That’s it for now, folks. Please share with anyone you like. And thanks for hanging around. I’m so glad you’re still here.
Dx
P.S
🤣 Comedy fans - two amazing gigs coming up that I would totally go to if it didn’t cost me a fortune in baby-sitting every time I left the house. Katherine Ryan and Chelsea Handler are both coming to the London Palladium soon – please report back for me.
👂 Louis Theroux interviewing Armie Hammer on his podcast and asking him if he is, in fact, a cannibal, is rather explosive. Do give it a listen.
☕ This is funny - from Daisy Jones for Vogue about not wanting to meet her younger self for coffee, as per the latest TikTok trend.
💸 And finally – I will be opening paid subscriptions again for Nesting. Anyone that opts in for that will get all my regular Nesting newsletters plus extra musings on whatever happens to be going on in my mind. 10% of all paid subscriptions will now go to Annabelle’s Challenge – a charity which funds research into Vascular EDS, my sister’s genetic condition.
Who is Dominique Afacan?
A very good question. Dominique (that’s me) is a writer and solo mum of two, based in London. The idea for the Nesting newsletter came about because after ten years of flitting around the world as a travel journalist, I wanted to share my new-found excitement about hanging out at home. I am also the author of Bolder – Life lessons from people older and wiser than you – a great birthday present, if I don’t say so myself – and available to buy here.
P.S The illustration for Nesting was created by my exceptionally talented friend Julia Murray in New Zealand.
I’m very sorry to hear about your sister. It’s lovely to read your thoughts again.
So sorry to read about your sister dying, Dominique. This is a lovely way to remember her.
Glad the itch to write here has returned.
Found you because you just kindly restacked my piece from last year, How I Met My Match.
Next on my TBR pile is Fiona Gibson’s The Full Nest. A light, fun read, to counterbalance the serious stuff.