A Quick Trip to North Berwick

On Saturday morning, Terry and I got up early and headed to North Berwick for a chair.

Yes, a chair.

I mean, it’s not the usual reason we head to the seaside, true, but, well, Terry has wanted an Arne Jacobsen Egg chair for years now, and he finally found one – or a replica of one – on eBay last week, for a price he was willing to pay. Aaaand, it was in North Berwick, which is about an hour-and-a-half’s drive from where we live. Obviously he won it, then: if our next door neighbours, say, had been selling the chair, it would’ve probably gone for five times our budget, but the fact that it would be a bit of a pain to collect ensured success for Terry, and a quick trip to one of my favourite places in the world for me.

The distance wasn’t really a problem here, but the size of our car definitely was. We couldn’t even fit a small chair into it, let alone one as large as this, but luckily for us, North Berwick isn’t just one of my favourite places in the world, it’s one of my parents’ favourite places too, so we called them up and asked them if they fancied a day at the seaside, and when they said yes, we were all, “Awesome, we’ll see you there, then! Oh yeah, and you’ll be bringing a gigantic chair home with you, by the way – bye!”

Now, North Berwick, as well as being a very Enid-Blyton-esque seaside town, is also the location of some absolutely amazing houses, which I’d almost weep at the sight of when we were house-hunting a couple of years ago. My favourites all have giant windows and/or balconies or roof terraces looking out onto the ocean, and they’re just dream houses, seriously. The house we picked the chair up from was one of these, and as soon as we pulled into the street, I looked at Terry accusingly and said, “Dude, you’ve brought me to a place that’s going to make me seriously dissatisfied with my house, my life, and the fact that I don’t live HERE, basically. Why don’t I live here?!”

Well, the answer to that one is simple: I don’t live there because I’d have to sell my current house at least five times over to be able to afford even the smallest of those dream homes, but at least we managed to make off with a chair from one of them, after a short – but intense – struggle to get it into my dad’s car. Finally, however, the chair was in, and we headed down into the town for a wander.

As soon as I found out we’d be going to North Berwick this weekend, I’d naturally started planning outfits, thinking I’d get a nice little lifestyle/outfit post out of it, featuring a fabulous, preferably nautically-themed dress (I, er, don’t actually own this dress, you understand – it doesn’t hurt to imagine it though, right?), on the sunlit beach. Unfortunately, though, Saturday was probably the worst day of the so-called “summer” so far – in fact, scratch that: Saturday was probably the worst day of the WINTER so far, too. When we left the house, the wind was blowing the torrential rain sideways, and the local gala day processions which happen at this time of year were having to have large parts of their programmes cancelled or changed, because of the horrible weather.

It got brighter as we headed east, but while North Berwick was sunny, it was also super-windy: as we drove into town, we could see piles of fresh leaves lining the roads, having been blown right off the trees. I mean, I personally find the fallen leaves sad even in Autumn (I know I’m alone in my dislike for Everyone’s Favourite Season (TM), but I just hate seeing everything dead or dying…), but when the leaves are green, and should still actually be attached to the trees, you know you’re having a pretty bad summer.

Anyway, there was a time when I’d have ignored the weather and worn the dress anyway (that time was August 2012, in case you’re wondering), but I’ve learned my lesson from other days spent freezing my ass off for the sake of fashion, so for once I decided to be sensible and dress for the weather, rather than the blog. I know! It’s almost like I’m finally growing up or something! Normally I’d be all, “It’s June, so I WILL wear a sundress, and I don’t care if I turn blue with the cold because of it,” but lookit me now, all sensible and boring in my jeans and my padded jacket. IN JUNE, PEOPLE. JUNE.

Still, it may have been cold and blustery, but a cold day by the sea is better than a sunny day when you’re stuck in the house/office, so I’m not complaining. (Other than all that complaining I just did, obviously. Complaining about the weather doesn’t count, though, because, SERIOUSLY, June. SERIOUSLY.) And I WILL have my house in North Berwick one day, I swear. I started looking for it as soon as I got home, actually. I’ve worked out that I just need my blog to become approximately 5 million times more popular than it is right now, and I might just be able to scrape together enough for the deposit. Which kinda makes me wish I’d made more effort with these photos actually, but hey: you can’t win ’em all. And oh yeah, we DID get that chair:

I think Rubin approves…