room with a view

It's the strangest feeling.. we're back home in London (a lovely city, don't get me wrong) but I feel like our ghosts are still haunting room 205, at the Hotel Vittorio (on Maronti Beach, Ischia, as previous post).

Our deck - as with all the other guests - was large, big enough for deck chairs and a table, lots of space to sunbathe, but we were always in water: the sea, the warm natural pool, the hot hot pool - all natural mineral spa water, no chlorine (I will never again consider any other 'spa' the real thing, because it's not).

Our view, from left to right. That's one of the guests, the lovely Miriam from Milan, waving. She always wore orange and hot pink - one of my favourite combinations - and became a kind of muse.

Second in my Vittorio series.

hotel paradiso

We have found, simply put, the best holiday in the world. Two words: Hotel Vittorio.

On Ischia, the Italian island near Capri (but better, less touristy), Hotel Vittorio sits on the most private end of the best beach on the island - Maroni Beach - like a white cruise ship, growing out of the volcanic cliff it nestles in. Everything: dining room, every room, has a deck facing the sea. Imagine, if you can, layers climbing up: sea. Sand. Next layer: deck. Glorious pool, naturally warm from thermal, volcanic water - with the kind of minerals people pay good money to bottle and put on their skin (our skin, as Katrina put it, became 'like a baby's). Then, behind the pool, the even hotter pool, shown above - a kind of hot tub, in a grotto. Sauna. Every kind of spa treatment you can imagine (my husband even did the natural mud - the 'fango' - top to toe).

Then layering up and up, three floors of rooms and decks, all with a view. And the most amazing Italian cuisine. Delightful staff, and guests who get it. As people arrived, bear hugging the staff, it was often difficult to tell who were guests, and who were old friends. As we soon learned, it's the same thing. We were the only English guests, and it didn't matter. Soon after our arrival, I started feeling Italian. Swimming in that glorious sea, then the pool.. to wake by going to the sauna, the sea, the hot tub, then the buffet breakfast.. peaceful, blissful days into nights, just the sound of the sea, always the sea.

Perhaps we were lucky: the weather was perfect - not a cloud in the sky, average about 88 fahrenheit - and we had the loveliest neighbours on deck next to us, Katrina and Hubert, from Vienna, who have been coming here every year for twenty years, and who are now our good friends. In fact, we're hoping to time our next trip with theirs. But who knows: we might not be able to wait a year. It was so easy to do - a quick hop to Naples airport, then a lovely ferry ride over (I love being at sea) that we might just do it again this summer - or September.

There is so much more I want to say about this magic place, and especially, all the photos I will share with you. This is a start.

This is paradise.

something tells me we're not in kansas anymore

We're off to Italy! Ischia, actually. With camera. So setting this in advance, hopefully when you see it, we'll already be there. Really into the concept of travelling light, not checking any baggage.. oh and we're leaving at 3:00, so just hope the alarm works.

This isn't Italy, btw. It's Venetian Pool. As before. 

in my life: venetian pool

It was the year the Beatles first came to America, and they had just been to Miami for the first time. For those lads from Liverpool, I've seen the shots of them in the warm sea, and I know they'd not known anything like this.

I know, because it was the first trip I remember to Miami: I was just old enough to have memories, that stay with me, like songs, all my life.

We spent day at the Deauville Pool, guests of a man (a friend of my dad's?) who was staying in the same suite the Beatles had just vacated. Telling stories of girls knocking on the door, crying, kissing the walls.

But of all those memories, staying with our friends who are like family still, and trips to Monkey Jungle, Parrot Jungle - kids stuff - there are none that compare with Venetian Pool, in Coral Gables. And going back with my husband, after all these years, seeing a little girl who looked like me, who was exactly my age when I was there, playing with her brother being watched over by her father.. swimming in the same natural spring waters (it's the largest man made natural pool in America). Knowing it hadn't changed - that these were the same coral shapes that my father, living, had touched, and the joy that it was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it - a Hollywood vision of Italy, created from a coral quarry, dug to create the homes in this incredible place, just south of South Beach, Miami. It opened in 1923, the Gatsby era, and the ghosts of that time - and of my family, as children - haunt it today.

I have mixed within my photos, two shots by my father, Art Carin, the top shot, and the one of my sister in her blue swimsuit. His legacy - his eye - watches over me, informs everything I do.




And this is a song that has played ever since, which I offer to you, as the sound track to my life.

skin deep

There's a childhood story that stayed with me, the story of Stone Soup. If you don't know the story, here it is. I have always been fascinated by that concept: that together, we can create.. magic.

That's how I felt last Wednesday, when I had the privilege of attending a lovely charity event called Fight it with Fashion, created by the gorgeous girls (with amazing skin) at the British Skin Foundation. It's such a lovely concept: throw a party, everyone brings 3-5 items (altho a lot of us ended up bringing more: spring cleaning, de-cluttering, is SUCH a liberating feeling). Ask Nadia and Sara from the Young & Lost club to DJ. Get great people to cater it, serve drinks, and the proceeds go to finding cures for skin diseases, especially skin cancer.

Watching everyone laugh - it was like a sea of blondes, for some reason - I thought of my own dear childhood friend, Linda - also a lovely blonde - and luminous, glowing, radiant, beautiful mother, who was like an aunt to me, growing up, and who died two years ago today, of skin cancer. Evelyn: this event was for you.

Like my friend Lina, I wasn't planning to bring anything home from the event. But then.. it's hard to explain, but it was kind of a bit of a feeding frenzy, and I saw someone eyeing this navy beaded dress, and the adreneline kicked in, and when she put it back on the rack, I swooped it up. Turns out it's by a designer named Luisa Calvino, but I can't find anything on her. I think it's vintage from the 80s, but it fits like a glove. I can dress it down with a tee shirt and chelsea boots, bare legs, but I could happily wear it to the most glamorous event. I'll try to get my husband to shoot me in it: do a bit of self style, in the name of charity.

If anyone reading this wants to host a private party with their friends - a clothes swap - for the BSF, just get in touch with them at the British Skin Foundation. Ask for Hermione Lawson or Kelly Taylor, tell them Jill sent you.

What: The British Skin Foundation Fight it with Fashion Event

When: Wednesday, 5 June, 2013

Where: BSF HQ, 4 Fizroy Square

We had: Margaritas and yummy Enchiladas from Chipolte, and the best cakes from Honey & Co.

Huge thank you to Hermione and Kelly, and the other lovely women at the BSF, and the guests who made it such fun, and everyone who donated, and my friend Lina (with the hot pink lips and black hat) for donating such great designer stuff, including the Marc Jacob kitten shoes, and then choosing to not take anything home. That's the spirit.

OMM: casa milà serendipity

Yesterday, hanging around with my husband in cold London town, I felt - out of the blue - like pulling out old photos of a brief trip to Barcelona, without my husband, like five or six years ago. 

Little did I know that at possibly the same moment, the same childhood friends, Sheila and Steven, were in NYC, visiting from home in Malibu, with my other childhood friends, Caryn and Linda.. we all go back to when we were like two, three years old (okay, I didn't meet Caryn until Kindergarten, so that was five) and I only just discovered today, that while I was posting yesterday, they were talking about me, and that trip to Barcelona! I guess this isn't coming out the way I meant it to, except to say that I do so love serendipity.

The first day, Sheila and I were on the roof pool at the OMM hotel, a hot languid afternoon, and we were about to go on an architectural walking tour. And the serendipity of THAT: our guide mentioned that they were doing the first jazz night on the roof of Case Milà, which we could see from the pool. But I didn't realist until now: we were seeing these guys on the roof. They were setting up the jazz night. Which we went to that night: which you'll see in another post.

Second in the OMM Barcelona series. 

OMM: roof with a view

First in a series: on the rooftop of the magical OMM hotel, in Barcelona, as guests of my best friend from childhood, Sheila, and her husband, Steven Fein (my boyfriend and I introduced them when we were all about 15. The boyfriend and I split up after six weeks - we're still friends - but Reader, she married him!). She's a wonderful, prolific, passionate artist, full of imaginings, but more about that later.

The hotel is directly across from Gaudi's Casa Milà, also known as La Pedrera. More about that later, too. This being a series. I'm just feeling so grateful to them for that memory, and hoping to go back - with them, and my husband - someday soon.

fluoro filofan

I remember getting my first Filofax: I was visiting London from NY with my English boyfriend, it was the 80s, and I got mine in basic black, of course. I felt very grown up.
I still have the Filofax, and Reader, I married the boyfriend.
And now, decades later, living in London, I am the proud owner of a FLUORO PINK, genuine leather, Filofax. The original. New and Improved. The 21st Century version.
I can't tell you how much it cheers me up: this weather is the pits. It's not just London - I'm hearing it's the same in NY, across America.. not to mention the Twisters, the Hurricanes.. I don't have to tell you. Today's outlook is 'Outbreaks of rain affecting most. Misty in the east.'





Even in the warm places.. I'm seeing 18 degrees for Rome, 20 for Barcelona.. which means nothing to me if it's not in Fahrenheit, and I can't find the conversion, but I know it's not great. Not for a day or two before JUNE.
So there's one of two ways we can go about this, I feel. Besides booking a short holiday to an Italian island - which I've done - I can sulk, or I can wear fluoro. I choose the latter.
I equate it to sacrificing lambs, or first born daughters, at a temple on top of the tallest mountain. Every day, rain or shine, I wear something bright. It might be a jumper, it might just be nail varnish (shown here, by Model's Own- I like pairing pink and orange. And I love pink with green, esp. lime, like my lovely lime Tina clutch, by #IJ). It's too cold for my hot pink plastic sandals, of course. At the very least, I can wear my hot pink watch, or carry my hot pink Filofax.




Shortly after we moved to London, I met Elle Macpherson socially. She took down my number. I'm not  telling this story to name drop about Elle, but rather the thing that impressed me most: she reached into this gigundous bag, and pulled out a hot pink Smythson book, and wrote down my number. Wasted half a page on me (and no, Reader, she never did call). But the luxury of that big pink book stayed with me to this day. Pink leather feels like the height of luxury, but a Filofax is more than a book, because of the nooks and crannies. 
It's a clutch, with pages.

Speaking of watches, my husband's been saying he's noticed that 'kids' (i.e. anyone under 25) have stopped wearing watches. He's noticed that when people want to know what time it is, they look at their phone. I think that's so sad. I love the quaint, 20th century items, like watches, like proper diaries. Yes, I have a digital one on my laptop, but it's not the same.
The thing about my Fluoro Filofax is, it's leather. It HOLDS things. I can use it like a clutch, put my passport in it, money, credit cards.. it's got a RULER, for goodness sake. It's a thing of beauty, a joy forever, and while I don't love my basic black one any less - it's older than most bloggers - I love this one.. okay, I admit it. I'm a Fluoro FiloFan.
So if it's raining where you are, and it's not a pool day, let a smile be your umbrella. If we all wear something Fluoro, who knows, maybe collectively we'll WILL the sun to come out.

more from old harry house

As before: our friends' house in Poole, near Bournemouth. England.

Self portrait with pink shoes.

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend, all in the UK, Happy Memorial Day Weekend in the States, and to everyone else round the world, Happy Weekend. Ah, just as I typed that, the sun came out.