On August...

Hiraeth (said, ‘he raai’) is one of those tricky words that’s difficult to translate into English because we don’t really have the same concept. My understanding is that it means a longing for a sense of belonging that you won’t experience again: a home you’ve left, a lover that’s gone, a time

that’s passed… an undefined regret and sense of unease. I always think of this word in August because it’s such a strange month: it’s still way too cold to be spring, but winter is theoretically nearly over. August is an unsettled kind of month, which is why, every year, my friend Heather emails her team to remind them that although they may think they hate her, their colleagues and their jobs, they really don’t: it’s just August and they feel the same way every time it comes around.

Some other foreign words I wish we had in English are tartle, from the Scottish, which is that second of blind panic you experience just before you have to introduce someone whose name you’ve forgotten; kummerspeck, which is a German word for the excess weight you put on from comfort eating (it literally means ‘grief bacon’, which is hard to beat as a concept); and boketto, from Japanese, which describes sitting around staring into space. Or, as we call it at home, Being a Teen.

But if August is a bit iffy, FAIRLADY isn’t. In this issue, we always look at bargains – specially in the beauty arena, where we round up brilliant bargain buys that local beauty gurus swear by. There are so many excellent products that are also really affordable, and I love having them presented in one annual list. The result is a cut-out-andkeep beauty resource (pg 72). Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. And don’t worry about the

hiraeth – it will pass!

Love, Suzy