A very warm welcome to my new newsletter, EDITED. I’ll be curating edits of things I’m loving as well as answering your questions, sharing advice, recommendations and generally spilling the tea. We can chat travel, fashion, wellness, beauty, weddings, career, life, relationships, podcasts, photography.. whatever you’d like to know. Perhaps I’ll get some guests in too!
It sort of feels like everyone is starting a newsletter right now, but can you blame them? It’s like a blogging homecoming. I’ve been ‘blogging’ in some form for over 10 years now (eek I’m old), and this feels like a nostalgic, yet contemporary way to share content and one I’m so excited about. A sort of ‘going back to my [blogging] roots’ feeling. It feels good to share longer form content and to have a more editorial home for my photography.
I’d had an underlying desire to start a newsletter for some time, but I was waiting for a light bulb moment of quite what to share - something aligned, inspiring and digestible. Falling asleep on Christmas Eve-Eve I suddenly had that ‘ding’ and got planning to have it launch in the first week of the New Year, and a new age for me personally (it was my birthday this week too!).
I’ve been buzzing with ideas since so I hope you take something from being a subscriber. I’m so grateful to be in your inbox and having a more direct line of communication. Please do share with friends and engage (on the Substack site or app you can comment and like, or you can hit ‘reply’ and it goes straight to me) so I can continue to evolve with your feedback. The newsletter is free right now and hopefully filled with lots of valuable recommendations for you.
Keep scrolling for a life update and The Weekly Edit -
LIFE UPDATE
I’ll regularly be sharing mini life updates - something I love from the ‘Life With Marianna’ podcast to give a little more insight behind the scenes, as I can be bad at doing that on Instagram when things get really busy.
It already feels like forever ago, but my husband and I spent the festive break with both of our families in succession and rounded it off with a few nights in Somerset with friends. For NYE we dressed up with a theme of ‘Posh + Becks through the ages’, which was quite something (photos redacted). We laughed over games (Karen + Telestrations), ate at The Three Horseshoes Batcombe and couple-swapped to cook each course of dinner. I was on dessert and made a 10/10 chocolate mousse, if I say so myself (recipe coming!).
I’m officially one year into freelance life as of this week, which has given me some pause for thought. In the last year I’ve been pretty bad with having any boundaries and I’ve recently been challenging myself on my ‘corporate hangover’. This year I’m making every effort to keep my mornings more sacred - I’ll report back.
As I mentioned, it was actually my birthday on Thursday, which everyone loves to tell me is the absolute worst time of year for a birthday. I like to start the year with a new age - it appeals to my logical self - a double new leaf (plus, I really like being a Capricorn). I made rainy London feel as ‘LA’ as I could with a wellness morning with my sister alongside my first Knoops hot chocolate (75% plus sea salt and cardamom, so good). I’m making it a tradition to go to The River Cafe for lunch on my birthday (two years in a row makes it a tradition right?) so we did that with our parents and then I met my husband for dinner. I’m also doing dry jan, so I was reading in bed by 10PM. If that doesn’t scream ‘birthday in your 30s’, I don’t know what does. Next year it would be preferable to be somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
THE WEEKLY EDIT
A quick fire of what’s in my eyes, ears, mouth, mind etc.
LISTENING | This is Cleo Sol on Spotify - perfect chilled, sexy vibes | Sidetracked podcast with Annie Mac + Nick Grimshaw - a weekly conversation about the music world
WATCHING | Saltburn (bloody bizarre) | The Crown
READING | By night - Beach Read by Emily Henry - a charming, contemporary romance novel | By day - No Excuses by Brian Tracey | Inbox - SUNSCREEN
EATING | Sumi (delicious Japanese in Notting Hill, sister restaurant to Endo) | Dalla (can’t decide if the food or interiors are better, Hackney) | The River Cafe (never disappoints, PS. they do half portions of most things (even dessert!), it’s an IYKYK thing my Grandma taught me)
DRINKING | Matcha with a mint-choc spin - I’ve been adding cacao and peppermint essence and it’s so good! Inspired by one I recently had at Jenki
BUYING | I treated myself to a new desktop computer as I’ve been working off an iPad for the last year, which I adore, but I was increasingly needing an ‘actual’ computer. I’m loving it, although I’ve made some expensive errors getting the right keyboard + mouse set up right
VISITING | Repose for red light, infrared sauna and cryotherapy (my new found obsession as I can’t tell you the difference in my face before and after!)
DOING | Bryony Deery’s January Pilates challenge
WEARING | These COS jeans-meet-joggers
Thank you for reading - I so hope you’ve enjoyed Volume 1, I’ll be back with Volume 2 on Tuesday aka The Boutique Hotel Edit. Subscribe to be the first to read it and beat everyone to booking the hotels :)
Love India @theindiaedit
Hi India! Wanted to share some encouraging words. This is exceptionally crafted – the writing is polished and effortlessly digestible. The visuals are sleek and the use of voiceover enhances the overall experience. An aspirational blend of aesthetic and substance! I typically don't subscribe to newsletters, but your decision to start one (based on your instagram content) got me curious. Excited to see where you take this. Good luck! ✨
Dear India, I absolutely adored the newsletter. In my opinion volume 1 already has been one of the best newsletters I've ever read. I especially liked the Weekly Edit but I also loved reading the life update. It was a very good idea to make this newsletter and happy belated birthday! In the future I would love to read about the topics career and traveling. Lots of love.