Coastal Grandmothers' Aesthetic

...for Knots in the String

Coastal Grandmothers’ Aesthetic?

A month or so ago, I saw mention of this phenomenon. It required googling and I found a heap of references!

It appears to have come from a 30-something lady who had coined the phrase on Twitter and it’s become ‘a thing’. Its reference point is Nancy Meyers movies like Something’s Gotta Give, the benchmark for the ‘aesthetic’.

One of the Google links I read listed (tongue in cheek) how to achieve the coastal grandmother aesthetic and this is where I began to laugh.

Upon waking up, sip a hot beverage on your front porch in a matching pajama set as the sun rises.

Truth? I stagger to the kitchen in my Susann’s PJ’s and have toast and marmalade or jam, a glass of Berocca (vitamins) and my blood pressure tab. I’m liverish till I’ve eaten.

Do a quick round of yoga or pilates, or take your dog for a walk on the beach, to get moving.

Well yes, I do take the dog for a walk on the beach, that’s true, but not till later when I’ve dressed and painted some sort of face for the day. It soothes the liverishness.

Change into your capri pants and clogs, grab your gardening tools, and snip some fresh herbs and fresh flowers to use later (probably hydrangeas).

I wear old gardening clothes, my hair in a scrunchie, garden gloves that have dug amongst worms, roots and compost and I talk to my plants. I don’t have a gardener and love mucking about in soil and I don’t snip herbs for an ‘aesthetic’ but for a purpose. I walk round making mental lists – ‘must get snail killer, buy Derris Dust, put Seasol on the long border, barrow out the lucerne hay and mulch everything.

Take a quick bubble bath, wrap your body in a plush robe, and then put on some cozy cashmere so you're comfortable yet put together.

Mid-morning baths? Who has the time? And cashmere? For wearing in a normal day of busy-ness? Here on the coast? (I laugh out loud here) No airs and graces in my clothes.

Grab your straw hat and straw tote and head to the local bakery, and perhaps the farmers market, to see what's currently fresh.

Nope. Our freezer is filled with breads we bought at the oh-so-not-glamorous city supermarket an hour away. The freezer’s in the shed and I grab a loaf and chuck it in the cane clothes-basket (oooh, maybe that’s an aesthetic…) when I finish pegging the laundry out on the clothesline. As to the farmer’s market? There isn’t one close by.

Go antiquing and take a pottery or art class, then head home to plan for a casual, cozy dinner party.

Truth? I’m too old, maybe even self-contained, for the chitter-chatter at a dinner party and am now at an age where I can acknowledge my introversion and say no to that sort of thing without fear. I’d rather crash on the couch after dinner and watch streamed TV while doing some embroidery.

Remember to write that handwritten thank you note you've been meaning to get to and clean up that paint from your art room, as you multitask the day away!

Creative spaces? I write novels on my laptop wherever the sun is shining throughout the house. It’s a movable feast. Handwritten notes? Yes, I like that. I love buying nice notepaper and cards and actually writing a letter to distant friends.

Make fresh lemonade in a pitcher with lemons from a bowl on your counter, so it has time to set.

I pick lemons from our tree and then frantically search Google for recipes to use up an oversupply of lemons.

Pour a glass of chardonnay, pull an Ina Garten cookbook from your open shelving, and prepare some fresh pasta with vegetables and herbs you collected throughout the day.

Prepare a thoughtful tablescape with soft candles, striped cloth napkins, rattan placemats, and stoneware you made yourself.

Who is Ina Garten? Is she as good as Dame Mary Berry or Nigella? Nigella’s pavs are to die for. Also, sadly I don’t drink alcohol anymore – I had post-operative sepsis a few of years ago and it affected my liver. As far as cooking goes, I use loved handwritten recipe books filled with my mum’s and my own favourite recipes. I use the herbs I picked. I don’t set an aesthetic table. Bit pretentious for an average evening.

Change into some lightweight and elegant, yet breathable, linen, and welcome in your chatty, but never boisterous, dinner guests.

See above on dinner parties. By now, I’m in sports leggings and zip up sports top and thinking about taking Dog for his night walk. If it’s summer, I just grab an old jumper/sweater and throw it around my shoulders and slip on very tacky and worn boat-shoes. If it’s winter, I find a beanie, gloves, thick woolen socks, a polar fleece jacket, polar fleece vest and either a quilted or weatherproof jacket and boots. Maybe I can pretend I’m one of the Royals on a wet day, walking the Jack Russells.

Someone may even play a quick tune or recount a story from the past. Either way, there will be lighthearted laughs and thoughtful conversation to go around for hours.

OH and I converse on many things – life, the universe and everything. Then we each go and have a bubble-bath (bath too small to bathe together) and tumble into bed to sleep the kind of sleep that old people sleep.

Listen to a coastal grandmother playlist in the background throughout:

This is the one and only potential truth. I checked all the links on Google, found a rather good playlist on Spotify and I might just play that periodically whilst wondering if I should plant blue hydrangeas or spend heaps on cream or taupe linen clothes and blue and white ginger jars.

The thing is, I am actually a Coastal Grandmother. My husband and I live on the coast in a small idiosyncratic 60 year old weatherboard (clapboard?) cottage where we can hear the waves and feel the weather changes, and we have an adored almost 4 year old grandson.

I love everything about coastal life – breezes, tides, coastal plants, birds, fish, the ocean, ocean light and sea-mist. My aesthetic is the non-aesthetic. It isn’t about a Hamptons home filled with hydrangeas and linens and blue and white faux Chinese porcelain, beautiful as that is. It’s about having a calm, quaint little home set in a garden where Dog, OH, family and I can exist in contentment.

I suppose as a real CG, I should be chuffed that a 30-something coined the phrase CG Aesthetic as something to aspire to because this world is such a cruel and vindictive place and nice aesthetics can go a long way. Certainly Nancy Meyers’ settings are beautiful.

But I’m sad that perhaps those taking on the aesthetic mightn’t see beyond the movie-set lifestyle to what is real. The threats that affect all coastlines, oceans and sea-life – things we real CG’s fight for whether we wear linens or not! I spent 4 intense years of my life fighting to save a small patch of coastal estuary from development and to stop salmon farms infesting our beautiful coastal water. We won one, lost the other.

There’s an intense affection we have for the coast and its 1000’s of years of history which we want to protect. Because let’s face it, without a coast, surely there is no CG Aesthetic! Just the stuff of make-believe…

Ah well. I’ll continue to be a real CG without the aesthetic and with pride in what my generation is trying to do to protect a fragile environment and very special lifestyle. But just in case you want to take on the aesthetic, here you go…

Bookshelves:

Same as last week. I’ve mentioned before I’m a slow reader. Although I’ve finished the novella The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher and once again, it gave that warm feeling.

Watching:

Trying to fill the Borgen emptiness. We’re watching The Village on Britbox, an historical drama set in WWI. It’s grey, poignant and happiness is rare, the distinction between gentry and common stock is marked.

Also just watched Prue Leith’s Garden Plot which was interesting and am now partway through Great Canal Journeys with Timothy West and Prunella Scales where they are quite open about Prunella’s dementia diagnosis. At our age (70’s) it’s something we are more aware of…

Boredom Busters:

Ballet class. Gardening. Cooking. Embroidery. More stitches out. I feel a little more normal now although dislike the ear intensely. But as a Coastal Grandmother, I’ve spent years in the sun outdoors – cancer occurred, and the ugly ear is the result. It must be accepted.

Finally – writing. It’s what I do.

That’s it for now. Thank you for reading such a long post to the end. I value your interest, your friendship, time and energy. Take care and see you very soon.