The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

What a fabulous film. Sex and the City 2 that is. I don’t know what all the bad reviews were about. OK, so it got a little cheesy towards the end and the outfits for shopping in the souks were nothing short of ridiculous but how funny was Liza Minnelli singing ‘Single Ladies’ and how brilliant was Samantha and her hormonal sweats?

One of the most beautiful scenes was when they went camel riding in the desert and they were served drinks in a stunning Bedouin tent. Which got me to thinking (in true Carrie style) about camping and how much it’s come on over the years.

Having spent the majority of my summer holidays camping in France when I was growing up, I’m well accustomed to the more negative aspects of living under a badly constructed piece of polyester. I remember the long, hot, sticky car drive down to the South of France all too well. By the time we arrived, our cramped Renault 6 would stink of camembert and ham (which my sister and I hated so stuck down the side of the car) and tempers would be seriously frayed. My otherwise meek and mild dad would switch into army commander mode, winding up my feisty French mother even more than usual, and begin the operation by pounding tent pegs into the over baked, solid earth.

It was only when we reached our teens (and he was sick of our whingeing) that we were allowed lilos as “I had groundsheets in the Scouts and I survived”. You soon got used to the stones, mice and moles moving around under your back. I’ve also spent 4 nights camping at Glastonbury but would rather push to the back of my head my experiences with the ‘she-pee’ (I thought it collected wee but didn’t realise it had a hole at the end) and the baby wipes – as well as a sleepless night spent camping ‘à la ferme’. Sharing a toilet with a couple of chickens is not for me – sorry mother.

However, it would appear that camping as I know it has been seriously overshadowed by something the trendies have nicknamed ‘glamping’. This is camping at its most glamorous. Actually, I don’t think it can even be linked to camping if you’re not roughing it a little bit but here goes – my guide to ‘glamping’ it under the stars.

The Wagon, Pewsey, Wiltshire
Forester and furniture maker James Noble used natural Sussex oak to construct this little wagon. It’s completely secluded so don’t come here if you like people watching. There’s a hammock, a barbecue and even a clay pizza oven. Camping…yeah right. From £90/night.

Ekopod, Bodmin, Cornwall
If you’re a bit of an eco warrior this is the ‘tent’ for you. It’s a luxury low-carbon retreat on the edge of Bodmin Moor. The white dome tent has a wood-burner and a transparent wall with views onto the garden. In a separate cube tent you’ll find a mini-kitchen and bathroom with a wood fired bath tub – there’s also a wooden decked area where you can eat from the breakfast hamper left for you. From £90/night.

Sapperton Yurt, Westley Farm, The Cotswolds
The group of people who set up this project are seriously into sustainable living so don’t come here if your idea of sustainability is enduring a hardcore night out. They lay on courses and activities like bushcraft and foraging for guests so if you don’t fancy wandering down to the village shop then you can hunt for your dinner instead. This yurt is in a converted horse trailer (so not camping) and has beautiful rugs, a woodburner, a double bed (bed? What’s wrong with a groundsheet?) and a roll top bath. There’s a hammock, a private decking terrace and fairy-lit trees.  From £65/night.

Caravan field, Hazlegrove Farm, Ashey
Helen Carey is a stylist from London who just happened to buy a 1965 Airstream vintage caravan off Ebay. She now has 10 trailers and uses her love of all things beautiful to kit them out in true vintage style. As well as showers on the trailer they also have a separate shower facility and proper loos.  No she-pees required.
Sleeps 4 per trailer. From £360 to £565 per week. Weekends from £160 to £240.

‘Wind in the Willows’ caravan, Abergavenny
OK, I give up. This is so not camping. This caravan featured in the film ‘Wind in the Willows’ (hence the name) and is a proper Romany caravan (albeit recently renovated). It has a full size fold out double bed and a woodburning stove. As well as the caravan you also get an off grid ‘eco cabin’ with a kitchen, dining and shower room.
No need for baby wipes or she-pees at these luxurious places then. If you can’t rough it, glamp it!
Valerie x

Bonjour bonjour. After much cheese noshing, vino drinking and cheek-kissing I am back in sunny England. I’d forgotten just how beautiful Brittany is – so beautiful in fact that I even managed to turn a blind eye to the wood effect wallpaper in one of the hotel bedrooms (it also came with bobbly brown wool blankets and a strange over the bed net curtain that I guess was supposed to look romantic). Days were spent eating, drinking, discussing where we were going to eat next and…well, drinking again. Then we joined my extended French family at a gite for my granny’s 90th birthday where yet more food and drink was consumed. I have come back ½ stone heavier and am now contemplating yet another diet to trim down the camembert-filled rolls of fat.

I’m not feeling in the slightest bit glamorous but had better get myself in the mood pretty sharpish as this weekend I’m finally off to see the new Sex and the City film. I can’t wait and have deliberately avoided all plot giveaways as I want it to be a surprise. It’s had terrible reviews but I know I’ll love it regardless for the fashion and the friendship between the fab four.  There’s 10 of us ladies going – a proper gaggle of girls – so I feel sorry for any random men who find themselves there. When I went to see the first film there were just 2 poor blokes in the audience – one I think was gay and the other had been dragged along by his cruel girlfriend (why would you do that?).

Films like this are just crying out for a chic cinema to watch them at. Dodgy multiplexes just don’t cut it for a film that’s all about glamour and decadence. We’re going to the Everyman in Angel which has just been done up with its own bar and comfy sofas and footstools but here is my list of the top cinemas in London.

Starlite Urban Drive-in
Truman Brewery
1 minute walk from Shoreditch station or 5 mins from Liverpool St station.
OMG, a real life drive-in… in London. And you don’t even need a car. At the Truman Brewery, 20 Volvos have been pre-parked for 3 nights only so you just need to rock up with a partner to snog on the backseat. Watch classics like ‘Grease’, ‘Eclipse’ and ‘Twilight’ and get your drinks served to you by rollerskating waiters. Tickets are very limited but they are releasing more tickets on the day so keep a beady eye out.

The Aubin Cinema
Redchurch Street, Shoreditch
This is part of Shoreditch House so is super swanky. With only 45 seats it’s tres intimate so perfect for a soppy first date. It has velvet sofas, squishy cushions and a bar.

Everyman Cinemas
Everyman have cinemas all over the place but my favourites are the Screen on the Green in Angel and the Hampstead branch where you can book a sofa for two, put your feet up on the footstools and enjoy waiter service.

The Electric
191 Portobello Road, London
This is dead posh but what else would you expect from a cinema in the heart of Notting Hill? It has leather sofas, footstools, a bar and delicious cakes. Check out Electric Sundays for cheaper seats and more unusual films. They also have a Kids Club – leave them there and go shopping.

Curzon
Curzon have cinemas all over London but the Soho one is great if you’re in town. Mainly showing arty films, this cinema has its very own Konditor and Cook café. Yum. It also hosts regular Director Q&As, documentary events and the Midnight movie.

Phoenix Cinema
East Finchley, N2 9PJ
This cinema is one of the oldest cinemas in the UK. Run by a charitable trust, it’s Grade II listed and has unique art deco features. It shows independent films as well as new releases and holds regular events, talks and workshops.

Firmdale group – Weekend Film Club
It doesn’t get much posher than this and I’m still waiting for my invite. For the ultimate in chic seats, check out this group of cinemas at the Soho Hotel, the Covent Garden Hotel and the Charlotte Street Hotel. Every weekend they offer afternoon tea or dinner in the hotel restaurant followed by the movie of the week for £35 per person. They show old classics as well as new releases – so stuff your face, lie back in the cowskin seats and order in the champagne dahrlings.  Popcorn munching has never been so chic.

Enjoy the show. Valerie x

Notecards above by Cecily Vessey

There’s something about a mini-break that brings out the psycho in me. I wish I could be one of those spontaneous types who just books a flight and then finds accommodation/ bars/restaurants as they go. However, even the very thought of this brings on a sweat. Holidays for me involve serious planning and Excel spreadsheets. I’ll never forget the time we went on a girls’ trip to Copenhagen. My mate Mel [a fellow anal organiser] and I had spent hours compiling a list of the best places to eat / drink / shop / breathe and my sister [so horizontal it’s a wonder she can function] just left it behind on the plane. Mel and I took it in turns to deep breathe into the sick bags. I think I just don’t want to feel like I’m missing out on anything and I do like a nice place to stay so I can’t just rock up at any old b&b.

Tomorrow I’m off to Brittany – a whole new travel research experience for me. Normally I’m thrown into a whirlpool of options when it comes to boutique-style accommodation. However, the French seem to have ignored the fact that your average traveller now expects something a little slicker than OTT chintzy bedrooms with 1930s broken beds. Boutique hotels do not seem to have made it across the channel. I have scoured the charming gites sites and come up with some so-so places but nothing that really floats my boat. Of course every hotel on the shortlist was typed into Trip Advisor – there’s nothing like this website to get you really confused. You can read 20 great comments about a hotel and then all you need is one negative one to put you off it completely.

Anyway, with flights/hotels booked and restaurants/bars/shops starred and highlighted in the guide book, it’s onto stage 2 of holiday prep. Getting this stilton-esque body ready for exposure on the beach. It’s probably going to piss it down all week but in my head I will be surrounded by lithe, young French beauties in thongs who’ll leave me cowering under my towel behind some old grandmere’s windshield.

For a glimpse into what I’ve undergone this week, read Lauren’s article last week and times it by… well, lots of times as my body may well have to be ‘covered’ by nothing more than 2 tiny scraps of material. I am currently slathered in St Tropez fake tan – users of which may well be familiar with the unpleasant fruit cake odour and general fear of severe orange streaking. Plus it’s really hot so it’s starting to melt and the postman is due to deliver a parcel any minute. Do I explain that I have fake tan on or do I just leave him wondering why someone would be sweeping chimneys at the start of summer?
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I’m writing this on the day after the bank holiday weekend – a weekend that for many of us involved tarting up our homes. Inevitably this will have required some half-hearted attempts at DIY. You only had to go to Homebase on Bank Holiday Monday to see empty shelves and frayed tempers. It’s a good contender for a couple’s day out at Ikea.

I’m strongly of the opinion that if you’re going to have a go at some DIY, stay well away from your loved ones. Matt’s attempts at DIY are usually accompanied by a general display of tourettes, tools thrown out of his pram and lots of kicking. Unfortunately he’s doing the front garden fence at the moment so the neighbours get an earful too. It’s not the best location for DIY. Every couple of minutes a neighbour comes by with a friendly, albeit annoying, enquiry about what he’s doing. “Ah, so you’re building a fence” [er yes], “have you built one before?” [does it look like it], “are you sure it’s level?”

…Matt’s DIY prowess was revolutionalised on Monday by the purchase of a new nail gun. I’ve learnt something new this weekend. A trip to Screwfix for a bloke is the equivalent to a girl’s shopping weekend in New York. I had to go with him as it was en route to a shop that sold letterboxes and, as a complete control freak, I couldn’t trust him to choose one on his own. The minute you enter ‘man’s Mecca’ the whiff of testosterone shoots up your nose like cheap aftershave but what really struck me was that there’s nothing to look at or touch.  There’s no chatter or nice décor – just men poring over catalogues of tools in utter silence. After what felt like several hours of fidgeting and pacing the concrete jungle, the new nail gun was finally purchased. Back at home, all that testosterone must have gone to his head as he seemed to take to the fence like Rambo with his new toy.
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This week I have mostly been agonising over the colour of my front door. There’s something about being confronted with a colour chart that brings out the schizophrenic in me. I started off wanting ‘Cotswold green’ but tried it on the door and realised that to carry this off you pretty much need to live in a Jane Austen-esque country mansion with rambling roses framing the porch. Then I veered off in a completely different direction and thought about those delicious candy coloured doors you see in Notting Hill. This led to Sky-blue – gorgeous on regency houses but lairy on a bog standard London street. Matt was useless. He took one look at the patchwork mess on the front door and just said “ you know I don’t really care don’t you?”. 6 samples later and I’ve settled on Farrow & Ball’s ‘Green Blue’. Sometimes it’s green, sometimes blue. Sorted.

I painted the door barefoot and trod in so much paint that I could have made pretty impressive foot moulds. This led to me thinking about the dire state of my gnarled winter feet. I live in flip flops and would wear them in winter were it not for the fact that they give you camel foot when paired with socks. So in the name of research, I dragged my sorry, paint-smeared toes to the lovely people at Nails Inc who invited me to try out their ‘Terrific Tootsies’ pedicure. As I sat back with two episodes of ‘The Hills’ for entertainment [I don’t get that show – all they do is pout and open their eyes really wide when they’re given a bit of hot gossip], I suddenly felt a pang of guilt for the poor therapist who had to manhandle my knackered feet. But within 45 minutes they’d been scrubbed, filed and moisturised to baby soft perfection. And then, yet again, I found myself deliberating over paint colours. I settled on ‘Brook Street’ – a coral shade which looked quite summery. Other hot new colours which are bang on trend [they say this kind of thing on ‘The Hills’] include ones from the ‘Greige’ collection… if you don’t have your finger on the pulse that’s a play on, well, grey and beige…and ‘Haymarket’, a shade of green which would have co-ordinated perfectly with my front door.

There are loads of places in London where you can go to get your feet blitzed. I love the sound of the ‘Double Choc Pedicure’ at Bliss Spa which comes with a cup of hot chocolate. There’s also the ‘Ultimate Cowshed Pedicure’ at Cowshed. You get your feet wrapped in a hydration mask while they massage your scalp and shoulders. Sounds stressful.

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