The Simple Life

I asked my husband to ponder his perfect day.

I wanted him to conjure a portrait of home and homing in.

I asked him this particular question, as we have recently moved back to London after three years away. Three years of not London, not countryside either, but small city or big town living. Like falling in proper love, we keep feeling amazed at how lucky we are to be back.

In late 2022 we moved to Bath. A city that we had visited many times and had always enjoyed. On a sunny September afternoon, sun bouncing off Bath stone, a glass of wine and an anchovy snack - you could justify that you were in Rome, which is pretty near perfect. Add excellent friends, wonderful bookshops and wine bars to the mix and it seemed a splendid place to be. And this is where we should have paused. We should have sat outside the wine bar in February, perhaps imagined life there without the bookshops and friends.

We had moved there both from a real need and a heartfelt but unknown desire for something else. What I understand now is that I was looking for growth as opposed to movement, and a perceptible shift in how we were living.

My business had grown and due to Covid, there were no spaces for me to place it. Wrestling pallets had reached peak struggle. I needed somewhere that was the right size in the right place, for the right money. Covid had removed all the right options for someone who is a financially prudent and sensorially led business owner. An industrial unit on the outskirts of Croydon was my one and only option and I just couldn’t do it.

We had also received an offer for our apartment. An offer out of the blue but it was financially hearty, so we accepted it and told ourselves that we were ready for a new home. I still miss the apartment and the views. My husband misses it so much, that it is difficult to talk about. 

We took 1 + 1 and made 3. If we couldn’t be in London, then we would put the business in a small city. Somewhere in theory where lots of ex Londoners (staff and customers) would have moved to and where we would still be stimulated. Brighton was ruled out because I don’t like it – I’m sorry if you love it, but I just can’t do it and I don’t know why. Cambridge, we love. My husband spent his childhood there – he learnt to swim in the city pool and many other important markers. Plus, his best friend lived there, and the Backs are outrageously beautiful on a May morn. I had romantic visions of finally embarking on an Anthropology degree. I’m not sure why I thought I would have time – but as someone who seeks and needs continual growth, this made perfect sense. But we didn’t have a strong customer base there – books not paint is Cambridges currency. So, Bath it was.

It made sense. A perfectly perfect city, with friends. We set up a factory and took a short lease on a store to test our desire and stamina for retail. After 15 years of weekends only, my step-daughter moved in with us. This was beautiful. Watching her and her father see, know and love each other properly is the real gift that Bath gave us.

Within a year though, a profound ennui seeped in. We had a pleasing Georgian house in the centre of an aesthetically beautiful city. Business was growing and we were a tight and happy family unit. We had made friends and our dog count had risen to three. All markers of truthful happiness for us. Reflecting on that time, I know now that I was bored and weary. Bored by the universal beauty, by the pleasant sameness, by the enclosure of the city. We have friends who love Bath and I totally understand it, I realised I just couldn’t. It didn’t feed me in the way that home should.

As someone who is driven by the sensory, the human, the poetic and the profane I realised I need (and it is a need) to butt up against things, to find contrast and shapeshifting in my environment. Peace for me comes from constant stimulus and I find solus in contrasting people, buildings, and streets. I’m not someone who does their thinking in the quiet. I’ll find it in a walk between Whitechapel tube and Columbia Road, or a drive around the back streets of Chelsea. Both different but because of that, exactly the same. Know yourself.

For those that feel London is monstrous and complex, please give it pause. Its pace makes it more straight forward than you think.  I believe that a kinetic and quick paced city can be simple. Find your anchors, return again and again to the parts and places that feed you. Then flex and stretch. Delight in something you didn’t know or hadn’t experienced.

We should have known, but like dating a gorgeous but inappropriate person, you keep going until you just have to stop.

And so we moved back to London with the business and our daughter, dogs and most of my team. Our new factory is in Bermondsey – a building that wasn’t quite ready three years ago, but fulfils everything I hoped for. And we have moved to a new but familiar area of London. A standard late Victorian house overlooking a beautiful park. It may not be the magical Georgian manse, but it is less than 30 minutes to either Tate – and that was our number one criteria. For us it was its proximity to stimulus as well as familiarity that won over the house itself.

Watching everyone settle then thrive has been the growth I needed. Owning and developing Atelier Ellis is like breathing for me – I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. And being in London for both it and me is right.

Our one perfect day was the same as it has always been in our beautiful 20-year relationship. A walk with our dogs – a city park or the streets of London. A coffee and a conversation. Then a trip to a bookshop and/or a gallery. Lunch somewhere delicious – not fancy, just delicious. More talking. A glass of wine and people watching, then home to cook for friends.

We are steadfastly home.

Cassandra x

 Photography by Chris Horwood