Domestic Miss : A Sweet and Sour Slice of Life

Sad and SAD

2011-07-04T15:58:00.000+01:00

Last week, as I was whiling away some time on Twitter, I came across a guy who, like me, does not enjoy this time of year. He told me that it has all improved for him as he got older, and I guess that, together with saggy knees, the menopause, liver spots and dentures, maybe there will be something to look forward to with Old Age. Imagine enjoying March to August instead of proceeding as if shackled into a mould of black treacle...! I cannot even process it, dear reader, as even on those days when I step outside in a silk dress and with my hair in a knot because it doesn't need drying and styling, I invariably catch myself thinking that... God, if only it were October already and I could wear my scarf...

I settled down in bed at 11.30 last night and then I tossed and turned. And then tossed and turned some more. 0.47 am. Then 1.47 am. Then 2 am. Then 3 am. Then... you get the picture. Of course Victoria now gets up at an ungodly hour, as she sees so much light so early and evidently thinks that 5 am doesn't really look like 5 but more like 9. Wrong Vic. William isn't much better, although he seems to have understood the significance of TO YOUR BED!!!!!! after twelve years of living together.

When I finally caved in at 7.15 and got up, bending to their scandalous requests to be fed broadcast in my face at full volume, I felt teary. Here's another reason why I could never be a parent: I need to sleep. When I don't sleep, I feel tragic. When I don't sleep and it's summer, I feel even worse if humanely possible.

It's now 3 pm, I've been sitting at the computer for what feels like a lifetime, and I am all but ready to drop face-first onto the keyboard. Except... I've got one bloody ghastly meeting to get through still and the air is tepid and the windows are open and I am in such a low-key mood that it's a lucky miracle I didn't have to see anyone today, because I think that visual stimulation other than the blinking cursor may as well caused an implosion of my mental faculties.

It's not just the Seasonal Affective Disorder though; indeed I am not just afflicted by SAD, I am also sad.

As the whole job situation is as slick as oil and gives me the much treasured opportunity to think about all good things, something has been paining me for quite some time and I must confess that I am experiencing all of it as a death, no overstatement there. I think that it isn't just the SAD that didn't allow me to sleep last night but rather the enormous difficulties that I've been experiencing.

I don't know how to cope. In fact, the other day I wrote a pointless email to my best friend, telling him that my problem is... I don't know how to cope. But I guess that nobody knows how to cope about anything anyway, and that we only travel through desolate lands because we have no choice. I keep telling myself that absolutely everything will be fine by my birthday and that I needn't think about anything at all right now. But that's still two months ago. I guess I would be just a little bit happy if I could remove Victoria's cone, thus preserving what remains of the house. Just another week to go and then I'll update you all.

Living The Dream

2011-06-13T18:30:00.009+01:00

I've often thought of those people, mostly faceless, whom I have a tendency to admire for really odd reasons; people who can sing well without even trying, people who live or work in exciting places, people who produce really nice work, be this showcased through a blog or self-publishing, and more. Then I looked back and realised that, at some point in my life, I was living a dream, yet I did not realise it. I used to live in a flat right behind the London Eye, that tall, semi-circular building known as The White House (very imaginatively named, I must tell you). While my own windows faced the rather little thrilling Waterloo roundabout (or the IMAX cinema, if you're feeling a little more upbeat), the roof terrace overlooked the Thames and, with it, Big Ben, the London Eye itself and, a little more to the right, The National Theatre.

At that time, I was consumed by work. I am not saying this in the sense of 'rushing up the career ladder as quickly as I could'; no, I really do mean consumed in its worst sense. I mean consumed as burnt out by a working treadmill that saw me running and running, even at weekends, never stopping to notice anything. Only once did I go to the roof terrace and sat down, taking in the sounds and the beautiful view. Only once did I actually notice Big Ben chiming. I may have taken a couple of pictures of it, but I cannot be sure.

It's exactly ten years later, and I am, once again, in this marvellous spot of London, watching the full trees swing in the wind, the tourists stopping by to take pics, the river curling up in thousands of creases. A lot has happened since the summer of 2001, and a lot has not happened, despite the plans (they really are for little schemers) and the striving (don't, ever).

I've recently started reading the blog of an American artist, this one, who lives in Brooklyn. She often talks of what she does downtown and I always smile as she mentions places that I know so well and that are so dear to me. If truth be told, I swoon a little. Then today, back from the copy room, I caught a glipse of the Thames and, for a change, I stopped. It's a fabulous day in London, with a pale blue sky and clouds scattered across it. As I take it all in, after a period that has been traumatic to say the least, I realised that I am living the dream. For a change, it ain't just somebody else's dream, the dream of someone who may be reading this, swooning like I do over Summer Pierre's site, but my own dream too. This time, I want to stay in the dream, I want to record it all, I want to enjoy it all. This time I am the one actually living it.

Dark And Stormy Days

2011-05-21T17:04:00.000+01:00

Since I last wrote, we’re expiating the splendid weather that graced my part of the country during April. Instead of April showers we are dealing with May showers and with the only exception of my working in London last week, up here it has been nothing but very dark clouds and rain. I find something immensely appealing though about this state of the sky because my garden is completely out of control in the green department, with tall, tall grasses and the trees resplendent with glossy new leaves against this backdrop of dark grey. You wouldn’t believe how that sets them off!

But, of course, the first time it rains after a few weeks really is the very best time. I love the smell of the soil and the grass and there is little that I find more uplifting than writing early in the evening during the summer, when the rain is lashing down and birds are still singing on the branches. Have you ever noticed that? Birds sing in the rain, they are not at all like us, begrudging the weather and complaining about it. They have little parties out there, they tell one another stories and they don’t care at all that it’s raining. And they don’t even have brollies. We could learn a thing or two from observing birds in the rain.

And, ah yes, London. I’m currently scheming to return to work there and, all being well, that’s precisely what I will be able to do very shortly. While this is appealing in many ways, I am not that thrilled to leave Victoria during the week (or William, but she is the one needing some special care at present). Yesterday I saw François again and I will most likely have to take her back to ensure that her ear is healing appropriately. The girl is fine but the new tissue within the opening is struggling to seal up properly. I’ve been kicking myself for the past day because I should have taken her back when I first found her with her paw in her ear two days after her operation. She ripped five stitches out then and it all went a bit awkward on the healing side of things, even though she is not bothered by anything. More on this as it evolves.

Victoria and Vet François Guillaume Saulnier-Troff

2011-05-06T17:04:00.002+01:00

I think that the web is a very practical, helpful tool. Within milliseconds, you can check out all sort of data and if you’ve had a bad customer service experience, you can go on a forum and warn everybody and his uncle about it. Herein, in a sense, lies my concern dear reader; while people have short memories, the web’s memory isn’t short at all.

When a few weeks ago I Googled the latest vet I was dealing with, a certain François Saulnier, I was flabbergasted that pages and pages of entries (and especially the most important few at the top) were all about ‘disciplinary hearings’, ‘unprofessional conduct’, ‘full charges’ and, the worst of all for me, ‘dishonest vet’. Dishonest vet? What? My François? Who the hell were these articles talking about? Why were they even there?

I am writing this enormous post for two reasons:

These details will benefit any dog owner who is seeking an in-depth account of a benign canine ear tumour from the owner’s perspective; AND
If you’re in two minds about taking your pet to this vet having read certain information available online, you may welcome the view-point of a very happy owner.

Victoria’s Ear Polyp – How It Started

Victoria (background) playing with William

At the very end of March, I noted that Victoria’s left ear (Dalmatian, nine years old, spayed) was producing more and more wax despite my daily cleaning routine. She had always been a little precious about her ears and, up until Christmas 2010, I had never quite managed to clean hers as effectively and as often as William’s. When I noted that my efforts were paying off in the right ear but not the left, I began really to stick my hands and nose down there. I noted a smell that none of the other canine ears was producing and the wax that I was cleaning out of it did not look that waxy either, but rather resembled a discharge and was more liquid in consistency and far darker too. As I was massaging the cleaning fluid into the ear, I also noted an odd, squishy sound, as if a tiny sponge soaked with water were lodged in the ear canal. When I shone a light in it, I saw a white protuberance that completely occluded the canal and was, seemingly, growing out of it.

Regular readers of this place will know that I am well-versed with many canine illnesses, ailments, accidents and disasters, but I have to tell you that even I got alarmed when I saw this thing (being disastrously hypocondriacal doesn’t help either...). Even though the growth did not look like a carcinoma (or at least not a carcinoma in its advanced stage, when they can be red or black, yikes), but was white and squishy, I was really worried that it could be the beginning of a malignant ear cancer, when the patient may still not show any symptoms. The day after, Victoria saw one of my local vets who confirmed that there was a growth in the ear and who booked her in for a biopsy two days later.

The result of the biopsy indicated a ceruminous adenoma, which is a benign tumour that, although rare, tends to affect the skin inside feline, rather than canine, ears. Regardless of its rarity, Victoria appeared to have one and as sure as hell that thing had to come out, for it completely blocked off the ear canal and, consequently, its ventilation, potentially leading to infections with all sorts of dire consequences. Because the adenoma isn’t filled with liquid but is made of solid tissue, the biopsy could not reduce its size, neither could the vet move it in order to check the horizontal canal leading to the middle ear.

While discussing surgery, however, it became apparent that my local vet hospital, although rather stellar in many ways, currently does not have a soft tissue specialist. I remember feeling my stomach back-flip when the vet said this, for she indicated that there was a vet who could do the surgery but wasn’t yet fully qualified to do so. And who wants to do ear surgery with someone who is not yet fully qualified to do so?

It then immediately occurred to me that the ChesterGates Referral Hospital, where I’ve been with William many times for his epilepsy when it was still the Cranmore MRI ten years previously, had expanded into a superb, snazzy hospital with all types of specialists. I suggested we asked them whether they had someone who could perform this type of surgery and later that day Victoria was booked to be seen by François Saulnier the following week.

Victoria and François

When I met him I was as tense as a guitar string and, most likely, I may have come across as a monosyllabic idiot who did not really understand what was being said. In reality, I had barely slept since I had seen the growth inside Victoria’s ear as I was gripped by an anxiety I had never known before. While William always had me sitting on pins thanks to his epilepsy, health-wise, Victoria’s nine years had been as uneventful as a weekend in the Welsh countryside. To be talking about a potential total ear canal ablation and of the post-operative pathological report that would follow in order to ascertain what exactly had been going on, brought home the truth that, however obvious, had never quite crossed my mind before: she will not be around for ever.

Even though I was invited to sit down, I stood like a fidgeting lamppost (if lampposts could fidget, that is) and remained pretty much silent throughout. François proceeded to draw a section of the canine ear and to illustrate the scenarios he could find once operating.

The growth could have been near the top of the vertical ear canal only, therefore requiring a partial ear canal ablation (the vertical one) and a clean up of what was left below.
The growth could have been originating from the horizontal ear canal, therefore requiring a total ear canal ablation.

In scenario 2, there was also the possibility that the middle ear, which is the deepest part leading to the hearing apparatus, could be damaged to various degrees. Because the polyp lodged into the ear was blocking it completely, and the right ear was completely clear, it was hard to tell whether Victoria’s hearing had been affected in her left. As far as I could tell, she was behaving normally (and, crucially, she was not scratching her ear or shaking her head at all) and could hear me just fine (except for that ever-present ailment known as Selective Hearing, whereby ‘Come!’ in isolation does not work, but ‘Gravy bone!’ does).

François then also spoke of possible outcomes as well as complications. The facial nerve could be affected if the polyp was deep inside the canal and had started impinging on it. A partial facial paralysis (affecting the eyelid, for example) or a loopsided look are possible, depending on the extent of the damage. Ear canal surgery that is not performed by experts may also lead to a facial abscess which will then need to be drained. If at all possible, hearing should be preserved, but the priority was to open up, remove the blockage and take it from there. The upshot was that only 1 in 1,000 dogs die under general anaesthesia and that a very healthy and fit, if slightly senior, dog like Victoria should be able to go through with it.

I didn't really feel like I had a choice, dear reader. I wanted that polyp removed there and then, so I signed all the forms and left her at the hospital with François.

When I left, although worried sick, I also had an underlying, if vague, good feeling about it all. Unlike William who has been prodded, pricked and poked by vets since he was a puppy, Vic has always lived the yearly shots as some dramatic absurdist pièce de théâtre in which she played the tragic heroine. The day before I left her with François I had a little cry because I thought that she won’t understand what’s happening to her and she will be scared to death and I won’t be there for her. In reality, she immediately seemed at ease with the guy, and quite happily sauntered off with him as I left (this is unheard of). I think that she had caught a whiff of a good vibe much more strongly than I, even though she probably paid no attention to the raft of thank you cards in his office. I did though.

I sat on pins all day, knowing that the surgery itself would most likely happen in the early afternoon. In fact, François called as he started the procedure to say that the growth was quite big but seemed only lodged in the vertical ear canal. He would therefore most likely proceed to a vertical canal ablation.

For three hours I heard no updates and I must confess that at that point I thought she was dead. I was imagining François sitting in the office with the fabulous Mr Skerritt, shaking his head and saying, ‘I did all I could’, with Geoff replying, ‘Yes, I know son. These things happen, I’ll call her’. I was this close to cracking when I called at something past 5 pm and spoke to reception. When the lady told me that Vic was fine and recovering well, but Francois could not yet call me because he had an emergency and was still in theatre, I almost put the phone down on her, so that I could have a good cry. Instead I blabbed something like ‘Oh she is alive then’ adding a little bit of hysterical laughter for good measure and rang off. Then I cried.

Vic back home straight after surgery

I heard from him at 7.30 pm. He seemed slightly tired but upbeat, telling me that Vic was awake and fine, she was, in fact, looking at him with a bit of a wag going on. The polyp was indeed as extensive as we had expected it, but only just reached the curve where the vertical canal leads into the horizontal one. So he had removed the vertical canal and preserved the hearing function. Her bandages would be removed the morning after and she would likely be able to come home that evening. Again I hardly spoke (I was, in fact, struggling to breathe), threw in a couple of minor hysterical laughs, and that was that.

Post-Operative Developments

The following morning François called at 9 sharp to let me know that the bandages were off, that it all presented itself as it should, with a bit of side swelling, but nothing too drastic. He would monitor Vic through the day to ensure that no complications arose but I could go and pick her up that evening. Dear reader, I was thrilled out of my wits and surprised myself thinking, what a nice guy! A vet who calls you back when he says he will is a rare thing, trust me on this.

When I turned up in the evening, I was horrendously late (and I am a Virgo and I drive a Jag and I am never late) but François waited for an age so that he could give me more information about the operation. He did so by drawing once again the section of the ear canal and indicating exactly what he had done and where the new opening would be. He seemed really pleased to have been able to have preserved the hearing, as was I. But when Victoria arrived, and this will be of interest to those of you whose dogs may need the same procedure, she looked... well... terrible. She seemed to have turned into skin and bones overnight, her head was obviously half-shaven (well, at least she is a Dal, imagine how weird a half-shaven Afghan Hound must look) and I could tell that she had barely slept. Her ear presented itself well-cleaned if only ‘a bit odd’, as I said at the time, for the section underneath the pinna (=the ear flap) looked a bit swollen and, for lack of a better word, weird.

Of course, I was the problem; I had never seen a post-operative ear canal ablation and could not compare it to anything I knew. François explained that the swelling was normal, and was already reducing itself. I could see the ends of the stitches which were in place in order to facilitate the inner healing but especially to ensure that the new tissue would not close the canal completely, as that’s the tendency of these wounds. I continued to ask moronic question after moronic question (‘Are you sure she is ok like this?’ being a prime example), but Francois didn’t seem to notice the idiocy and answered each and every one and then some. I left with the provision to return after ten days for the removal of the stitches but I was welcome to call if I was worried or had any questions.

Unsurprisingly, Vic slept like a stone that night and most of the following day. She was eating but wasn’t excessively interested in food. She wasn’t bothered by the satellite dish she was wearing around her head and pretty much kept herself to herself. William barely took notice she was back (for all intent and purposes they may be boyfriend and girlfriend but he rather cannot stand her).

Vic's ear two days after surgery, starting to look not that great

The (minor) problems started the following morning after the feeds, when she was obviously feeling more normal and bouncy and wanted to take good care of her wound. When I took a thirty-second detour in the porch to fill the water bowl, I returned to the cone burst open and her left hind paw stuck in her ear. I sorted her out but noted some liquid seeping out of the wound and down her neck. The stitches appeared in place but I was unsure and could not really see inside for fear of pulling something off, so I called François who told me to keep an eye on her without worrying too much. Of course I was welcome to take her back for a quick check, but in order to do so he would have to sedate her and he would prefer to do that only when the stitches were due to come out. So I cleaned the area as best as I could and tried to ensure as much as possible that she would not open the collar. But it wasn’t just about that: I caught her throwing her head around in her bed and crushing her ear to the side of the collar on a few occasions. In other words dear reader... if there’s a will to scratch, there’s a way too, whether your dog is wearing a satellite or not.

Vic enjoying some time in the garden barely one week after surgery

Days passed rather uneventfully on the way to Easter, with Vic behaving more and more as normal. I would occasionally remove the buster collar so that we could sit in the garden together and she never once tried to scratch her ear while the collar was off. In fact, I think she rather liked the return of her full field of vision and the breeze gently flapping her ears.

Winking at me but not too pleased by her satallite dish

Meanwhile, François had called me again to let me know that the pathology report had confirmed that the growth was a benign ceruminous adenoma, as indicated by the biopsy, and that there was no (cellular) indication that anything more sinister had been afoot. I was growing slightly concerned by the pus-like, sticky discharge that was oozing from her ear though, hence we decided to book Vic in for the removal of the stitches a couple of days later. All was well in Steph’s World until I decided to do some online snooping to see how good this fantastic vet was.

That’s when I landed on Google and found little other than upsetting reports. I just could not believe that what was deemed, in an attention-grabbing headline (it worked, for it surely grabbed my attention), a ‘dishonest vet’ was the lovely guy whom ‘everyone loves’, as one of his colleagues had said to me while I was in the waiting room the week before. There’s no need for me to resume past events; you can find out about it as easily as I did. Suffice to say, I was so flabbergasted, my heart plummeting to my ankles, that I decided there and then that, while it is human nature to report on dishonesty, betrayal, un-professionalism and more, I would make a point to counter-balance what I read about this vet with my own account of a very successful turn of events where he consistently acted not simply professionally, but humanely too.

I’ll never forget the vet who told me, ‘Come on, get hold of yourself’ many years ago when I was crying about William whose continuous epileptic seizures and lack of control and non-stop overnight pacing were running me into the ground. Now that’s not what I call a professional, let alone humane, conduct. François, by contrast, has never been even remotely short, or too hassled to deal, with me, even after a 13-hour day spent in the operating theatre. So much for dishonest and unprofessional, dear reader.

What would I have done had I actually come across those reports before taking Vic to him? I wouldn’t have taken her, plain and simple. Doubt is a powerful agent and one that can stealthily destroy the most unshakable convictions, let alone our expectations of someone we've yet to meet. If you’re reading this because you’ve Googled him and you’re not quite sure, please reconsider. The guy is kind, unassuming, helpful and has plentiful experience to do a good job on your pet too if you've been referred to him. By the way, you may not find this information readily among those headlines, as most of the articles required a login, but the charge was then dismissed.

When Vic went back to have the stitches removed, it emerged that five out of the eight had already been ripped out but that, despite this, the tissue was healing just fine, even though a stricture had created itself. This means that the little outer hole (the new way in to the ear canal), was smaller and tigheter than it should have been as the tissue grows and tries to constrict itself around the wound. François therefore removed what remained of the old stitches and put another four in, this time length-wise so that the canal would be kept as open as possible during the healing process. After this procedure, which required some sedation, the seeping out of the ear ceased within two days and the area remained slightly scabby, but otherwise clean, with the ear at large soft as normal. The week after, the stitches were removed (two left... there’s just not keeping a bad dog down, is there), and the ear cleaned again, but François suggested that the collar should stay on for another week in order to minimise rubbing and scratching. The outer corner of cartilage near the ear canal was red, although it did not seem particularly sore, and I was now to apply Vaseline to the area three times a day for the following week. Before the time elapsed though, the cone was off, the ear clean and Vic was not interested in scratching at all.

The last meeting took place in order to have a final once-over. François had suggested that I may want to go to my local vet for this, but I was not so inclined. I do not think that a vet who does not have an in-depth knowledge and experience of ear canal ablations, whether partial or total, is in the position best to spot something even remotely awry when the new opening wasn’t even visible underneath the short hairs.

A nice neat new little hole just above my index finger is what remains

So I went back, and I’m glad I did, because, not only did he clip the hairs around the opening so that I could see exactly where the new entrance to the ear is (believe me, not as obvious as it sounds!), but he also showed me how to clean the ear with a cotton bud. This had been a concern of mine since the beginning, as I had figured out that removing the vertical ear canal would have meant being much closer to the bulla when inserting, however carefully, the tip of the cleaning agent bottle or a q-tip. I needn’t have worried dear reader; cleaning is much easier this way and flushing is more simple now that I’m already half-way there. I should continue to clean the left ear daily for ten days and should also clip the hairs around the opening once a month to facilitate ventilation. Victoria is as good as new and is currently snoring softly in her bed.

If you stumbled on here because you were looking for further information about François Saulnier-Troff, I hope you found this account helpful and, hopefully, a little bit reassuring. The guy’s great, he has even given me his email address. What vet or, God forbid, GP does that? Lucky is that pet which is in his care.

Betrayal At The Park

2011-05-02T15:59:00.000+01:00

I always go to great lengths in order to avoid paying a visit to Tatton Park without my dogs. It’s the highest level of doggie betrayal, isn’t it, as Tatton is their favourite place. In actual fact, it’s mine too, whether it is copper and crackl-y, blossoming and breezy or, my favourite, foggy and iced.

Today, though, the weather was yet again spectacular and I did take a very small detour into it from Knutsford, while the guys were at home. I am currently running a canine geriatrics hospital, with Victoria still perambulating with a satellite dish around her neck following her ear operation and William in high spirits but with very wobbly back legs awaiting his first physio session. I cannot wait to be back with them both.

Spring Tales

2011-05-01T20:58:00.000+01:00

I don’t remember a shower-less April, except for this April. With the only exception of Monday 4, a day which I remember clearly because Victoria was in hospital for a biopsy, I needed no heating on, no pashmina at all hours, no thick socks. If truth be told, it’s been a bit of a revelation. Spring around these parts is so ostentatiously wet and bad that anything other than comes as a bit of a shock. I just didn’t know what to wear, and I never not know what to wear.

I pointed my iPhone at everything that moved and didn’t move, taking pics of birds and trees, flowers, shoes, magazine covers, food, lattes and cappuccinos... the usual stuff really, but everything looked better in this light and especially with a backdrop of often very blue sky. From Easter to today, including the day of the rather stellar Royal Wedding (I love a good wedding me), everything was just perfectly full of colour and life. Good job I don’t have a job because that would have really thrown a spanner in the works, wouldn’t it? Imagine being locked away in a window-less office while it’s all crisp and green outside... Much easier to be at work in the depths of winter (provided there’s no snow, because if it’s snowy one must certainly wish to be playing outside in it).

Still

2011-03-22T17:57:00.001Z

Websites, mags, news outlets, books and even the rags often talk about our fast-paced lifestyle. Well, mine isn’t fast-paced and hasn’t been for a long time, but over the past few weeks (I’d say since mid-February), it has slowed down to unadulterated, calm stillness. Don’t get me wrong though; I still feel like days turn into weeks turn into months far too quickly for my liking. It wasn’t long ago that there was snow on the ground and already we’ve hit the end of March. But I’ve started living differently and that difference is stillness.

Gone is the pressure to do things as others expect me to do them and gone is also the burning need to hit imaginary deadlines. Yes, I did want to write a bit on here about pancake day and what I cooked for it and how good it was and also about Victoria’s ninth birthday but, you know what, it doesn’t really matter that I did not. I am creating in my lab these days. I’ve finally started the art journal that had been percolating in my mind for many months (if not... years). There is colour, lots of colour, and a lot of uncharted possibility in my going-ons lately and I love it.

Meanwhile, my dogs are spending more time outside, the garden is waking up and today I got a fantastic pair of shoes. Oh, and my local Starbee is open again. What more do I want?

You Haven't Seen The Last of Me-e-e

2011-02-23T16:14:00.001Z

Enjoy this dear friends. It turns out that there is one thing that this accomplished director/actor/writer/model/artist can't do. There's hope for the rest of us after all. [No image, just audio]

Potato Patties

2011-02-22T16:42:00.000Z

In Nigella's Kitchen there's an entire section dedicated to leftovers. Naturally, it's a bit odd to be giving someone a recipe in order to have leftovers because that's anathema to the very reason for recycling food we've cooked the day before. So today I am going to share a super-quick recipe to use up leftover mashed potatoes but I will be breezy insofar as quantities and whatnot are concerned. After all, only you know how much mash you have left and how many people you think you can make patties for.

I make my mash with a bit of sour cream and butter but, of course, if you really want to get a mash out of this world, you really ought to add lots of Parmesan and I really do mean go for it generously. Store in the fridge overnight and take it out about an hour before you're ready to make your patties.

Warm the oven to 180C and get going with eggs (two-to-three whole ones, depending on how much mash you're working with), peppers (one I'd say, make it red) and shallots (again, two-to-three). The aim here is to cut finely both pepper and shallots, then to add them to the mash and the eggs. Incorporate them well with a spoon and taste for salt, although you'll probably find that you won't need any if your mash was satisfactory to begin with.

Spoon the potato concoction (aim for four or five spoonfuls) on a non-stick baking sheet and lightly press each patty down so that it looks burger-size or so. Stick into the oven for 45 minutes and enjoy nice and hot. They don't look like much, but they taste really great.

February is Winter

2011-02-21T16:12:00.003Z

A couple of weeks ago, that Phil guy decreed that spring was just around the corner. Well, I believed him. For a couple of days it even looked like he was right. But apart from an isolated and freakish occurrence of +12C one afternoon, Mr Winter has certainly come back here where I live.

Last Wednesday it was my wedding anniversary and I spent it in the city, where the sky was blue and everything looked beautiful, but it was also windy, and deadly so, and it felt more like a bright November day, not a February one. Then again, February is in winter, so I don’t really know why we insist on looking for signs of spring when it’s still so cold outside. It’s a bit like hankering after autumn in the middle of August (ahem… that’s something I do, I know!).

Parts of the East Coast of the USA woke up to a fresh snowfall today and I cannot imagine a better way to spend Presidents’ Day. In fact, I am hoping that next year I will be there around about this time and that instead of fending off cold drizzling rain, I may well be strolling up and down Madison Avenue under a crisp sky, preferably somewhere way below zero. Meanwhile, my friends from Australia speak of incredibly tropic temperatures and of air con whirring away all night. Gosh. It’s unthinkable for me to live in such a climate. After all, if you’re cold, you can always cover up, but where the hell do you go when it’s boiling hot?

Ugh!

In other developments, things shall be spruced up soon enough around these parts and I shall eventually return to chronicling my daily endeavours more frequently than I have done for the past year. While my other site still takes up most of my time, I am inordinately attached to Domestic Miss and I have racked up lots of recipes I would like to share on here. And I’ve got to tell you about movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read and things I’m doing and… more.

Eighteen-One-Twenty-O-Eight

2011-01-18T15:30:00.001Z

Three years ago today, at this precise moment, I was almost in Chicago. I was there for work yet again, but I had taken some days off beforehand, so that I could have a gander and enjoy the magnificent city, its blue sky, the iced lake, the very brisk -20C or thereabouts and the generous sales. I had only just started this online diary and I certainly regret that in its first few weeks, I was not that forthcoming in updating it. I could have written so much during my days in Chicago, but I was wrapped up in work and in the PhD and I had not yet discovered the immense value of recording one’s life, even the plain, the mundane, the painful.

So much has happened over these past three years that I cannot quite believe I really am talking of three years. On second thoughts, it’s not what has happened that strikes me as incredible but rather what has changed. I still live in the same house and wear the same clothes (more or less… but it so just happens that today I was out in exactly the same knitted dress and puffa coat and long boots I wore in Chicago on this day), but I am a different person. I don’t think anyone who knows me can quite tell the difference, but I can, in that subtle way in which we look the same in the mirror every morning but pictures from weeks before look immensely different to ourselves.

The most remarkable change is one that has nothing to do with the way I look or feel though. I am different because I’ve learnt about the importance of keeping track of my everyday doings. I have a paper diary, as usual, this site and another site as well, and now that there are so many applications for the iPhone, it’s remarkably easy to keep track of every single little thing that catches my eye. So I am a little despondent about my last trip to Chicago, when I was so sparse in the cataloguing side of things, but as my key word for 2011 is FORWARD then that’s what I should focus on. And next time I am in Chicago, I won’t skimp on recording everything.

Depths of Winter

2011-01-17T15:00:00.000Z

The day started late, as it’s been customary since Christmas. I go to bed early enough in the evenings, but I can happily snooze until 9 am. The hot duvet is such a comfort when it’s cold and dark outside that I’ve got no reason, nor need, to throw my legs out of the bed any earlier. William and Victoria too enjoy these sleep-ins. When I first checked the time today, I heard William’s soft snoring from his corner of the room. That’s a sound that always makes me happy.

I find January 17 a peculiar date. It’s usually the day when I feel like the new year isn’t new any longer. I feel like I am hurtling towards month number two, and that in the depths of winter (we’re barely four weeks in), things spring eternal. I was scouring the soil at the graveyard in Knutsford on Saturday, but saw no snowdrops yet, nor the promise of them. On my window sill, on the other hand, cyclamens are pushing through valiantly, even though the new guinea is as low-key as it has been since I bought it many months ago and the azalea looks pretty much dead. I think they’re just… sleeping. Just like me.

Yesterday I had a gander at my local M&S and my heart skipped with joy as I saw the first of the Valentine’s tack that will take over our shops for the next few weeks. Oh, how do I love this non-holiday! My wedding anniversary is only two days later and there is nothing I prefer than to celebrate how lucky I’ve been in love for so many years already. And before then I’ll watch Groundhog Day again (disclosure: actually… I’ve already done…) and will hole up in the house and enjoy winter. God I wish I could stop time. Or maybe I wish I could slow it down. Yes, slowing it down would do just fine.

Au Revoir Mes Amis – Part IV

2011-01-10T16:50:00.002Z

January doesn’t really start for me until I put away the Crimbo decorations. It’s a process that I’ve always found bitter-sweet (or... sweat-and-sour, I should say). Part of me is usually thrilled at the prospect of novelty that January has always brought into my life, and this is especially true this year.

Yet, another part of me, the larger one, I should add, is not at all thrilled and treats the unhooking of glass baubles and detaching of twinkly things and lights as a little death. If I am spending the first day (or most of it), after such process at home, as was the case today, I end up walking around in a daze, my eyes searching the comforting glow of the lights on the tree, and finding only a dark, empty corner.

I think it’s symptomatic that I’ve wanted to write of these things each year since I started my online diary. In fact, I think that my first post ever was the very first Au Revoir Mes Amis in 2008. Let me check. No, it was my second post ever. Then I repeated it in 2009 and in 2010 and then today.

Today was a dark day. It rained for a while, although I am not sure those spits actually qualify as rain. I had a couple of errands to run, stuff I had forgotten twice over last week. After those, I sat in Starbucks, determined to crack open my new diary (the paper one). And I did so, except... I didn’t know what to write, which is a bit unlike me. I think I was suffering from New Diary Syndrome, that odd affliction that catches most writers out when something new and papery falls open on the table.

A new diary or journal is full of promises, of unwritten adventures, of new hopes and starts. I felt extremely hopeful a year ago, but the result was disappointing. Now I’ve got novelty served on a platter, and I am fearful of it; I am fearful to go after what is righteously mine. Hence I soiled the new diary with an extremely self-conscious page of tentative prose which was neither here nor there, really. But I ended that page by talking about my journal, the one I’ve wanted to start since October 2008 (I kid you not) and the one that I am starting tonight. By the time I will put the decorations away again next January, I will have a journal full of drawings to leaf through and that, in itself, is already uplifting. I don’t know why we treat our journals and diaries as if they were repositories of our pains when, really, they should exist to blunt them, not reflect them.

Hello 2011

2011-01-01T18:44:00.002Z

Christmas Cooking

2010-12-31T16:24:00.004Z

When I was in London earlier this month, a friend of mine proffered a cake after our dinner at her digs. But this was no ordinary cake; it was a deliciously zesty, damp clementine cake. I came to know that it was one of Nigella’s recipes, precisely this one. So the other day I set to boil my clementines for two hours solid and ended up with my very own cake, one that I dusted with icing sugar and which I am currently enjoying one slice at a time. The good thing about this, and uncharacteristically for Nigella, is that there is no flour and, horror of all horrors, no butter in it. It’s the almonds that make it so moreish and damn tasty and if that makes you feel a tad more virtuous as you tuck in it, all the better.

Next, and seeing that Rick is extremely fond of Costa’s own caramel shortbread, which, quite frankly, I find about as appealing as a slab of polystyrene with a whack of melted sugar on top, I digged out Nigella’s own version from How To Be A Domestic Goddess (which appears right here), and ended up with absolutely delightful shortcakes with perfect caramel and nice, thick dark choco set on top. The recipe is microwave-centric, which means that, not only are you supposed to melt the chocolate in it (still, my double-boiler is no great hardship), but you’re also expected to make the caramel in seven minutes flat.

Well, I live in the middle ages dear friends. I own no microwave. So I proceeded to melt the butter in a saucepan on low heat, then added the can of condensed milk and the four tablespoons of Golden Syrup. Then I tended to the pan which started simmering, barely, half an hour or so later. I then continued to stir very gently and on the lowest heat possible, for another hour and a half. Yes, that’s right, if you haven’t got a microwave oven, it will take two hours to caramelise this concoction of butter, condensed milk and Golden Syrup, but it’s so worth it in the end. Proceed unafraid but know that, although it does start browning after an hour, it won’t be ready until it has thickened considerably, reduced in volume and has cooked for a long time.

As I await to uncork the Cliquot, I’ve been sustaining myself with lots of sugary goodness, from pandoro to chocolate panettone, from caramel shortbreads to clementine cake, from brownies to chocolate biscuits and then some. I fear that, come tomorrow, not even my hairband will fit me any longer. But what the hell, happy 2011 anyway!

Turning The Leaf

2010-12-30T20:39:00.004Z

Frosty morning

I’ve never been more skimpy in keeping track of everyday ongoings than this year. Then again, I also run another site about writing where I posted almost two hundred times since February, so I guess that I’ve been writing as normal, really. But, deep down, I do know that I refrained from updating my online diary too often because I didn’t want a permanent memory of what happened in 2010. It was my annus horribilis, no contest, so much so that I threw away the calendars over a week ago and I shall also consign my diary to the recycling bin, something I’ve never done in my entire life.

Fortnum cappuccino with tiny ice-cream

Fortnum Christmas window 2010

Feeding seagulls in Knutsford on Boxing Day

December itself, however, was a pretty good month, as it brought about the changes I had been chasing for a long time and because I was in London for a while, made some new friends, and cooked quite a bit also. In fact, this afternoon I was in the kitchen for four hours solid, during which I produced carrots trifolate, white cabbage in tomato sauce and a rather mouth-watering caramel shortbread that is currently setting in the fridge. Oh and the other day I made a clementine cake that is to die for, as most of Nigella’s recipes are.

At the Natural History Museum, London

Nativity in Beauchamp Place

Harrods Christmas window 2010

Christmas was subdued but on Boxing Day, which also happens to be my nameday, as it is St Stephen’s Day, I went to Knutsford and fed the birds at the moor. How fantastic to see them swarm above my head (and at my feet), hankering after some bread! It was all frozen and they needed food desperately. Talking of frozen, the weather was completely fabulous up until a few days ago when the air turned, the temperature soared way above zero and now it is all foggy and damp and nothing special. I miss the sharp, blue mornings immensely, but I can live in hope that winter will bring more arctic days in the very near future. And I guess that tomorrow I shall post some of the recipes I’ve been doing...

A Crimbo cappuccino

My upside-down Christmas tree

Nigella Signing in Knutsford

2010-11-30T20:30:00.005Z

Last Thursday I went to meet Nigella. At least, that's what the in-store poster said, 'Meet Nigella Lawson', except it wasn't so much of a meeting but more of a 'jump on this treadmill and wave at Nigella as you speed by really fast'.

I wasn't born yesterday and I do know that high-profile authors attract a greater following and that each person cannot possibly spend ten minutes chatting away as if they were alone in the room. Yet, having been to such events before, this signing was disappointing. Many people ahead of me merely put their book on the table to have it signed and left with a meek smile, Nigella herself hardly making an effort to engage.

This is what surprised me the most; had I wanted laughter, fun, games and a pat on the back I would have attended a Jamie Oliver signing, I agree, but this isn't just about the character of the person. It is as much about the involvement and the effort that an extremely well-known, busy author should make in order to engage with readers, even if, bah humbug, there are five hundred of them. What a chore!

Who knows, the management at Waterstone's may like to organise things differently at some other time, so that we don't end up feeling like filing morons and more like readers invited to an actual event. How about a quick greeting from the author to those already queuing in store? A few words delivered to the masses would do better than this. Personally, I did engage with Nigella and she was as graceful as I expected. However, I'll remember the day as a huge anti-climax.

Of Golden Autumn

2010-10-31T18:51:00.005Z

Since the inception of my online diary I've been really, really disciplined with my updates. When 2010 came, I thought that things would be no different, except I could not know that it was going to be one of the greatest tests of my life. And perhaps it hasn't been the most horrible year since records began (it surely is competing with 1995), but there is something about it that makes me wonder whether it will take the prize in the end.

But as I said many times in recent weeks, and certainly since summer, I knew that things were afoot, I knew that things were changing. What I really meant was not merely 'morphing into more of the same' but changing for the better. And now they have. For real. And hopefully, from now on, it won't be just onwards but upwards too.

October has been predominantly golden, which doesn't happen often here. Many days were mild and sunny and last Monday I was up very early, enjoying the frosty garden and half an inch of ice to scrape off my windscreen. Then something happened mid-week; autumn turned from mellow to deep. When I returned home on Friday evening, my garden had turned into something else. The last few pears had fallen to the ground and the oak at the bottom fence had turned yellow. I'm always a bit surprised when this happens, much as I am taken aback by the morning, usually in late April, when I suddenly find leaves everywhere. I swear there were none only the day before.

I surveyed the remains this afternoon and even found the carcass of a bird at the very back (poor thing, I couldn't quite tell what it was, nor how its life ended). Meanwhile, the plants I had cut off in the spring have now composted, the roses are bent over themselves, the cherry tree is canary yellow and the high winds are battering whatever is left. Yellow, yellow, yellow, it's everywhere. Gosh my friends, I love it. I love it all.

Tomorrow I shall wear a thick black skirt with sewn jewels and a soft cashmere cardie. I am sooooo in my element my heart is skipping in my chest. On Saturday I am going to the fireworks and then, very soon, the Christmas Markets will arrive as well. For the first time in a very, very long time, I am going to enjoy myself. I am so happy.

Off The Record

2010-09-30T18:34:00.001+01:00

Today the sky was blue and it was cold. It was the first crisp autumn day we’ve had this year and the first time I’ve actually noticed the leaves changing. I’ve resisted the impulse to write in my online diary this month because I do not wish to leave a permanent record of latest happenings. Not that I worry about re-reading any of these entries, for I never do, but there is something quite off-putting about writing about feeling down when we are in the middle of it. It somehow makes it more real and, consequently, more painful still. Last time I wrote about flux. It’s still all in flux, not just for me but for Rick as well. I hope that my next entry on here will bring conclusion to a period that, quite frankly, I cannot wait to draw a thick, fat line over.

Flux

2010-09-20T19:57:00.002+01:00

A couple of weeks ago one of my clients wrote to me with a quick update regarding everything being in flux. Yes, in flux. This word, flux, really stuck to my mind as I considered my year up until that point. Then someone else wrote and told me that, hey, the planets are shifting, everything’s changing! And do you know something? Yes, it’s true. I think that much is afoot and that would be great because I have to tell you that I need some novelty in order to stop and think.

The year has swooshed by me. I just cannot believe that I last updated this place almost three weeks ago. In fact, I cannot quite believe how slack I’ve been over the summer, when I concentrated on other things and decided, quite, quite consciously I should tell you, not to keep a record of non-happenings. But now... everything’s different. I’m on the cusp of something, even though the everyday is still the same: squinting dogs, sleeping dogs and cakes.

Delicious

2010-09-02T21:03:00.001+01:00

There is something really, really weird about reading other sites and blogs and looking at pics of people on beaches, in gardens in swimming costumes, walking around in plastic flip-flops. Of course I am not referring to the people of Oz or thereabouts, they are always wearing flip-flops down there, aren't they, but in North America and in many other parts of Europe it is still decidedly summer.

Here meanwhile, despite the pleasant weather, mornings are nippy to say the least, and when I was out with my dogs earlier I could just smell autumn. Hence I felt slightly odd that my most unexpected birthday gifts are so summer-like that I don't know what to do with them. A pair of glorious satin Prada wedges and a Tom Ford nude lipstick. I may just soldier on at 13C and pretend I'm in California anyway.

Tepid Birthday

2010-09-01T22:52:00.004+01:00

Considering how low-key, weather-wise, July and August have been (not that I am complaining), today was a pleasant surprise or, as I often like to say, everything looked weird under the sunshine. It is the first birthday in many years that I've spent at home, by which I mean, in the house. Yes, that's right, I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do anything. Well, nothing other than beginning the day with a breakkie of chocolates and tea and spent the rest of it munching on my Irish coffee chocolate truffle cake. In fact, shouldn't I be posting that recipe around about now?

I'll tell you what, I'll do that another day. So while I lounged in the garden surrounded by dogs, I thought of how odd this year has been. I just cannot believe it is already September. Sorry, I just can't. I am deliriously happy that it is, mind you, but the year has morphed into one day that started sometime back, with the snow on the ground and now the leaves are about to turn again. One day. One... Groundhog Day actually. And that isn't necessarily a very good thing, is it?

The Unexpected Guest – Part II

2010-08-15T19:14:00.004+01:00

Sometimes last year I told you about this unexpected guest. Yesterday, another one showed up. As I was watering my plants, I noticed a bird I never see in my garden, a duck. So I rushed outside to investigate, as I was pretty sure she had flown in but I couldn't quite figure out why she wouldn't return to where she came from, although it ain't unusual for young ones to lag behind and need some assistance later.

After some running around, she did end up in my porch, and that's where I succeeded in getting hold of her and inspecting feet and wings. She was absolutely fine, apart from a bit of a heart attack, as I could feel her little heart pounding in my hands as I opened the door back to the garden and threw her in the air to check on flight abilities.

She was in good spirits after that, as she wasn't injured, and continued to plod around the garden, drinking from the pond, unearthing worms and picking crickets and spiders in the high grass. So I left her to it, ensuring that both William and Victoria stayed inside. I could see them with their mouths wide open, spit smeared all over the treble-glazing, and figured that Duckie may not have been able to fly after all if I let them out too.

She was still around when I took them for a spin of the garden after dinner, both on lead obviously, but she was clearly setting up for the night as she was calm and cozy in the grass. I checked on her again at nine and I saw that she was surveying the scene from the high-rise of the steps outside the patio doors, probably wondering where on earth the rest of the posse was and whether it would be safe to stop here overnight.

That's what she must have done as I didn't hear a thing since and this morning she was gone. Good luck Duckie, it was good to have you!

Changes

2010-08-09T12:17:00.006+01:00

Last Thursday I was in London for a meeting. The day before I went, I wrote in my paper diary: 'Tomorrow's meeting is going to Change Everything'. And as it turns out, I may have to say that, yes, it did change things in unexpected ways. I have another meeting tonight and it all looks set to solve one rack of important issues insofar as what I do is concerned.

I took the opportunity to have a spin around my favourite places and had lunch at Ladurée at Harrods, coming away with a large box of macaroons (because it would be criminal to visit without bringing some home) and three boxes of their fantastic tea. Such a difference from the supermarket rusk, I am telling you (that includes you, Twinings).

Rick and I have been talking about moving to London for a while. In fact, we've been talking and thinking about moving for ages and ages, we've just never done anything specific to make this happen. Now we are. The thing is, I miss London terribly. I love where I am now, but it cannot be compared to London. In fact, few places can, and they usually are other vessels of creativity (New York is one). I'll tell you more; I've bought a little pretty notebook which I am calling My London Move Notebook. In it, I am listing all interesting things I see around, houses for sale, new shops that crop up and so on and so forth. Actually, I highly recommend this sort of activity for anything you may wish to achieve. Show intention and things will begin to happen, you'll see.

It's Coming Home

2010-07-28T08:47:00.005+01:00

I was out in the garden super-early this morning and I was thrilled. Yes, thrilled. Do you know when the weather is turning, usually for the worse, and you feel and smell new air? I swear I caught a first whiff of, dare I say it, autumn. But it isn't a first sign actually, as the other day I was driving through some trees and I noted many little yellow leaves wafting in the wind and landing on the road. My heart skipped a beat; could this be it?! It has begun already, hurrah!

The result of this slow-but-steady seasonal change is two-fold: I've proceeded really nicely on the work I am doing, after a June which turned out to be pretty much a total write-off, and I have paused to consider how incredibly fast this year has zoomed past me. I know that it ain't over yet for a really good stretch, but there is something of an enormous shift within oneself when certain dates are coming up and one realises that, yet again, life is skipping along at a million miles an hour as we pant and shout in its wake: 'Wait! Wait for me! I am coming too!'.

I know why I feel this way. My birthday is coming up in September, in fact, at the very beginning, on the very first day, and there is nothing I like more than it (well, Christmas, but if we discount Christmas then there really is nothing I like more than my birthday). And the very odd realisation, when I look at pics from birthdays past, is that I haven't changed that much at all. Reasons to rejoice you will think? I guess so and yet it seems to me that, not having changed that much, makes me feel stuck and muddled in The Same, whatever I perceive that to be, with all the dangers inherent to that thought.

Today the Dyson doctor is coming. On Friday the cable detached itself from the machine as I was using it and a Mighty Pow at full 240v force left a burn in the floor as I picked it up, surveyed the sizzling end and realised that I got really lucky. I may not have died (wouldn't want to try it, mind you), but I could have ended up with a zinged foot. So why telling you this? Because the last time the Dyson doctor came over was two years ago. Two years. And, no kidding, it feels like five minutes ago.

Tirami-Not-Quite-Sù

2010-07-19T18:50:00.003+01:00

Rick doesn't like coffee very much. He particularly dislikes coffee puddings and coffee ice-cream, which is the reason why I very, very rarely make tiramisù, as I explained to you here. But then on Friday I thought that perhaps I could make a hybrid version of it, a nice, cold, no-bake pudding that would be just as nice but contain no coffee.

Hence I followed my own recipe, as linked to above, but substituted vanilla Rooibos tea for coffee. One word of caution if you try this one out (maybe you want to feed a tiramisù-looking thing to the kids, minus the coffee): you need to dip the savoiardi in the tea twice as fast. I have found that their tendency was to suck up more liquid and to become disgustingly soggy, something that you really do not want to have when covered in that beautiful whipped cream that you make with eggs, sugar and mascarpone.

So it may not quite pick you right up when made with tea, but it's a very acceptable sweet all the same.

Lists

2010-07-13T20:07:00.003+01:00

I consider myself remakably bad at getting things done. Yes, that’s exactly what I said. I am aware that this may seem an odd thing to say, especially for one who brags about writing, cooking, knitting, sewing, walking in parks and whatnot, but the sad truth is, I never feel on top of things. I am in constant catch-up mode. I’ve been in catch-up mode since I finished my first degree, when days stretched empty and sweet ahead of me. Oh if only they could have stayed that way. Life, real life, is hideous.

I’ve never felt so disastrously behind as I have over the past four weeks. I know exactly what stopped my progress which, at the time, was chugging along quite smoothly, if only ever slightly super-slow on the occasional bend; the weather did. See? I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sit here and update this diary without mentioning the weather. So, the weather did. It was only on Sunday that my bedroom started feeling like a bedroom again and not the stifling greenhouse that it had been up until then.

But yesterday morning, when I sat down detrmined to list all that needs doing, all that needs catching up on and all of the missed deadlines, I felt tears pricking my eyes. God I want this stuggle to be over so badly. Not life itself, no, just these never-ending pressures that have squashed me to the ground and then stuck a fork in my back ever since I took my first steps into the world of work.

I haven’t been serene for a very long time and I just cannot wait for the day when I won’t have to write yet another meaningless list which, in fact, is not an organised step-by-step solution but a monument to failure, there, in black or white (or blue and white, as is the case with me). But there is a plus point today: as it’s cloudy and only +15C outside, it means that I can start making cakes again. Or at least, I would if I had bought the eggs which, I am sure, I must have written down in some other damn list I have yet to work through.

Hello July

2010-07-05T19:57:00.003+01:00

At the beginning of last week the weather changed, by which I mean the temperature dropped enough for my bedroom to shift from furnace to open plan pottery studio in the country. Slowly, very, very slowly, I started to return to normality even though I still find this seemingly never-ending stretch of dry weather fascinating. As you can see, I mention it every time I write.

When I got up yesterday morning, however, not only was it sensibly cooler than the previous week, it was also very windy and I just adore windy days, be these by the sea, in the country or in the city. Within five minutes my room smelt clean and fresh and ready to start the day and I myself felt just like that. Except I attempted a home-made coffee which, as per usual, ended up down the sink accompanied by plentiful curses.

Have I ever told you that going out for a decent cup of coffee annoys me immensely? I have three stove-top coffee makers (make that four if we include the Bialetti’s Mukka) and not one, not one, makes one half-decent cup of coffee. Still, I persist. Still, I disgust myself. Still, I try time after time. Narky and pissed off, I got into the Shaguar at 1 pm and went to Starbucks.

I spent today planning because, try as I did try, the past three weeks have been shockingly un-profitable. I have progressed at less than snail’s pace and this morning I found myself with a list of stuff that run over two pages. Odd as it sounded when I used to work as a management consultant, this morning I really did feel there is some merit in planning the plan, especially when everything is completely, for lack of a better description, out of control.

I have short stories to critique and edit, I have one proposal to finish, one 20,000-word piece to write, 300 poems to edit and turn into proofs, three writing appraisals to write and, for fuck’s sake, I’ll stop right here. And of course, July has just started and the World Cup is coming to an end. Gosh, I already miss it. There is something rather reassuring about the flock of early-stage games that fill up our screens for the first two weeks. Ah, yes, who is playing today? Now we’re down to the last four matches and then it’s over for another four years. But you know how it goes... it’s July already... in five minutes’ time it will be 2014.

Lemon Cupcakes with Cheesecake Frosting

2010-06-24T13:34:00.002+01:00

I did, after all, proceed to some cupcakes the other day and I am glad I did because there is no chance in hell that I would turn the oven on today or in the foreseeable future. I am very pleased with how properly cupcake-like they have turned out, as I went as far as plonking an extra large cherry on top of each one of them. They are light and exquisite and another very successful experiment.

You'll need:

225g caster sugar
170g flour
2 lemons, juice and grated rind
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
100ml of skimmed milk
110g unsalted butter (for the cakes)
110g soft cream cheese
200ml double cream
450g sieved icing sugar

a 12-hole muffin tin and 12 paper cases

You'll do them like so:

1- Pre-heat the oven to 180C and prepare your muffin tin with the paper cases. Melt the butter and then remove from the heat and set aside.

2- Whisk the caster sugar with the eggs for five minutes or so, then add the juice of the lemons, the grated rind and the melted butter. Give it a quick (and slow) whisk.

3- Measure the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and add to the egg mixture you've whisked in 2 above. Whisk it well, then add the skimmed milk and vanilla extract. Whisk away until everything is combined and looks just a tad too wet and sloppy. As I always say, don't stress, they will bake just fine.

4- Divide this mixture in the 12 paper cases. You've got enough to fill them by 3/4 or so. Now stick the tin in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

5- Get the cupcakes out after 20 minutes and use a cake tester, just to make sure they are well cooked inside.

7- Leave them in the tin to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack for one hour. As they cool, get the cream cheese for the icing out of the fridge, so that it comes to room temperature while you do something else.

8- When you're ready, and when the cakes are cool, prepare the icing. Add the sieved icing sugar to the cream cheese, then pour the double cream and whisk it all by hand. Make sure you allow no lumps; they will form as you whisk but they are very easy to obliterate by flicking your whisk and working the mixture for a little while.

9- Prepare your sac à poche with an icing tip of your choice, fill it with the frosting and work from the outside in, as I always do. Place cherries on top if you must and then take outside for a nice pic! Store low in the fridge.

Back

2010-06-21T12:07:00.000+01:00

I spent last week in Nottingham, cataloguing thousands of books, editing poetry and existing on a healthy combination of coffee, Maltesers and bready things. Then I returned home on Friday evening to enjoy a weekend of chips, ice-cream, fizzy drinks and Pringles.

Today I’ve limited myself to non-fat yogurt and a salad because, boy, do I need to rein in. Considering that the working day exhausted itself by 12.30, when Portugal began its lambasting of North Korea and now I am catching up with Roger being beaten up on Centre Court (what the fuck happened while I was watching the football?!), I now need to stay focused and forget about the two tubs of ice-cream at the bottom of the freezer, something I could really do with around about now.

The weather is marvellous, the garden is tidy and I have a moutain of things to catch up on and a number of emails that need replying to. Yet, all I want to do is to zone out and forget that I’ve been awake since five. I don’t think I could have had a longer and less productive day if I had tried, but, finally, the summer solstice is here, which means that from tomorrow days will very slowly shorten themselves. By the time my birthday comes around, I will be able to sleep again.

Rick requested a tray of cupcakes earlier today, but I am not sure I can be asked to faff in the kitchen, especially considering that I cleaned it right down to the floor this morning. On second thoughts though, if I do make them, I can take a few snaps and share my new recipe on here, lemon cupcakes with cheesecake topping. For the time being though, I need to keep an eye on Roger hanging by a thread.

August in October

2010-06-07T19:20:00.001+01:00

At 2.30 pm the heavens opened and stayed that way for almost two hours. I was sitting on my bed, writing, but felt rather distracted by the persistant humming of the rain. See this?

That’s my deckchair with about two pounds of water in it. Now the window is open and that delicious smell of wet grass and soil is wafting through the house.

June started last week and it was cold, still and miserable. It looked a bit like October minus the red leaves and the bonfire smells. Then it turned crazy blue and delicious, like a freak version of our August, and I spent nights sleeping on top of my duvet, because 23C degrees in my bedroom qualifies as warm. By the time I had decided to wear a silk dress to Eva’s baptism, it all returned to a Mancunian normality of low-level clouds and, if not rain, at least the promise of it.

Today has been a painful day, as days often are when I wake up and my back isn’t quite ok and my arm, following my shoulder injury, isn’t quite ok either. I don’t think I’ve ever taken my mobility for granted, but I must admit that, dipping into and out of, acute painful phases due to my discs and, more recently, my shoulder, has made me very short-fused and angry with my body.

Yesterday I didn’t mean to take funny little steps, almost stooped as a big weight was pressing on my shoulders, but the truth is, I had no choice. Today I tried to do as much work as possible, and God only knows how much I need to be present in this sense, but it was extremely hard going. Funny how painkillers are supposed to help you ‘get on with things’ except they stone you into a light-headed stupor. Sometimes I wish I could access my spine by pulling down a zipper on my back, and then I would be able to slide out what remains of my poorly discs to be replaced with fresh, soft ones. Yes, imagine that, it would be like a vertical CD player, minus the tunes.

Abject Stupor

2010-05-31T20:30:00.002+01:00

I am sitting cross-legged on my bed, with my usual thick cushion on my lap and my laptop on my cushion. I am in a state of abject stupor, as I’ve just turned the page of my calendar ready for tomorrow and I’ve noted that, yes, it really is going to be June 1. This means that it’s only three months to my birthday, just over four to Rick’s birthday, just under five to Halloween, just over five to Bonfire Night and just over six to Crimbo.

And, my friends, I am typing all of that with a grin stretched across my face because you know how much I love the September-to-February stretch of the year. Heck, I spend the rest of the year hankering after those months. Some of my friends say that I am wishing my life away, and I suppose that’s a way of looking at it (that’s a negative way of looking at it, I say), but in reality this Sacred Call to the time of year when I feel most like me is just damn irresistible.

I spent the long weekend de-weeding my garden (more like, my gardens, front and back actually) and as I was janking the bastards off (they never ever ever ever ever ever die), I was smirking to myself, thinking about the falling leaves of October and the frost that will soon after burn everything in sight. Ah mega-glorious-bliss. It won’t be long and all of this pulling and pushing and planting and shoving won’t be necessary any longer and there will be burnt colours and crackling leaves everywhere.

Other than this, and despite my recently reported shoulder-related incident, I had a great end-of-month, with my writing workshop run more than successfully, and with very happy participants enthusiastically emailing me even before I had made it home. Too bad tomorrow is Tuesday, Rick is back at work and I will have to implement all of the planning we did over the past two days (when not de-weeding the gardens, that is). I may even have to cave in and deface my beautiful red journal with PLANS. And God help me but... how I hate plans! But then, I love outcomes of good plans and so I guess they can be useful sometimes.

In non-related news, I am cupcake-free. My electric beaters leapt off the shelf the other day and landed head-on the floor, quite possibly injuring themselves beyond repair. But at least for this week that’s ok, as I have to go to a christening on Sunday and want to look good in my silk green dress. And we all know that a carbs-and-sugar abstinence, however short-lived, does wonders for one’s figure.

Out Of Body

2010-05-23T18:49:00.003+01:00

It’s almost Sunday evening and I am sitting in the garden under the pear tree. Someone is having a barbecue. I am just glad I return to writing after a break that felt bloody eternal.

The past ten days have been very good and very bad. My work has been consistent and very focused and my glorious baking has reached stupendous nigellean heights; but then a shoulder incident stopped all of this. Out of the window went the book launch I was due to attend on Thursday and the concert whose tickets I had won. Right now I am just grateful that both my arms work again without excruciating pain and that, not only can I type away with minimum effort, but I can also dress myself unaided, I can scratch my head with my left hand and I can hold a book with both.

On Thursday evening, as I slowly made my way out of the local Sainsbo where I stopped to collect my multiple prescriptions, I went through an out of body experience as Rick and I walked through the double doors and stepped back into carpark. It was +20C exactly and yet I felt like I was in Cannes, years ago, existing the late-night supermarket with a tub of ice-cream and a stick of bread and feeling the air sucked out of my very lungs as outside it was still +32C, the humidity as suffocating as it had been all day. On Thursday evening it was nothing like this, and yet, it reminded me of it. It felt Summer even though I am certain that the past three days are nothing other than a freak occurrence, as warm weather always is in England, especially if at the end of May.

Ah, wouldn’t you know it? Could I possibly be outside having a good time? On Friday it was pure agony. Saturday felt mildly better. 15 tabs and a bucketful of tears later, I should be able to return to normality, whatever that is, on Tuesday.

The funny thing is, when I was little, I did mind being ill. I detested missing school days, as that translated into the huge burden of catching-up, something that I never liked to do, especially when I hit college and missing a week of philosophy meant doing Aristotle on one’s own, and I don’t recommend that to any fifteen-year old. These days I can be ill all I like, no fear of falling behind and yet, it felt truly awful this time.

Truly damn awful because I lost the use of a limb and even going to the bathroom or brushing my teeth or sticking my head into a hairband required a mega-massive-painful effort that made me question whether I really needed a wee after all. I am relieved the very worst is over and today I managed to take some pics of things I like. After all, you only really need one hand to use the iP anyway.

Off

2010-05-12T23:27:00.001+01:00

I have pretty much fallen off the radar. In truth I had been feeling terrible since before Bank Holiday, as I had already mentioned, and for the past week things hadn't much improved. I soldiered on, because I like to think that everything will feel better if I act like nothing is wrong, but I ended up spending all Monday afternoon in bed as I felt like death.

Still, despite all of this, I successfully undertook another baking experiment which yielded toffee cupcakes. They looked and tasted gorgeous, but I am still in the process of tweaking the recipe, so come back soon for an update.

Other than this, I've got nothing else to report, if not that I hope to be able to drag myself out of the house tomorrow in order to enjoy the rather brisk weather and maybe I'll try my hand at some really dark chocolate cupcakes this time...

Success Cupcakes

2010-05-06T13:41:00.005+01:00

I am a day later on this one, but, yes, I made it after all! The cupcakes passed the quality control and I am now ready to give you the recipe. I cannot even explain how thrilled I am that they turned out not only normal but, actually, amazing. It is vital that I crystallise the recipe on here, else I will most certainly forget it, and I am happy to share it for your enjoyment as these are particularly soft and moist without having a ton of butter in them, which always guarantees immense culinary delights and very, very hard slogs at the gym.

You'll need:

225g golden caster sugar
2 tablespoons of Golden Syrup
170g flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
100ml of skimmed milk
110g unsalted butter (for the cakes)
110g soft, unsalted butter (for the icing)
110g cream cheese
450g sieved icing sugar
colouring pastes and sprinkles

a 12-hole muffin tin and 12 paper cases

You'll do them like so:

1- Pre-heat the oven to 180C and prepare your muffin tin with the paper cases. Melt the butter and then remove from the heat and set aside.

2- Whisk the golden caster sugar with the eggs for a good five minutes, then add the melted butter and give it a quick (and slow) whisk.

3- Measure the flour, ground cinnamon, salt and baking powder into a bowl and add to the egg mixture you've whisked in 2 above. Whisk it well, then add the skimmed milk, Golden Syrup and vanilla extract. Whisk away until everything is nicely combined and feels soft and, admittedly, just a tad too wet and sloppy. Don't stress though, they will bake just fine.

4- Divide this mixture in the 12 paper cases. You've got enough to fill them by 3/4 or so. Now stick the tin in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

5- You may want to lick the empty bowl and marvel at the very subtle mix of toffee, spice and caramel at this point.

6- Get the cupcakes out after 20 minutes and use a cake tester, just to make sure they are well cooked inside. They will be a dark golden brown on top (golden, not chargrilled).

7- Leave them in the tin to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack for one hour. As they cool, get the butter and cream cheese for the icing out of the fridge, so that they both come to room temperature while you do something else.

8- Now prepare the icing. Cream the butter with the cheese (use a normal spoon or even the electric whisks) and then add the sieved icing sugar little by little. I must tell you that I hate doing this. I hate sieving and I hate mixing this stuff because I am always afraid that it will be either too hard or too soft and I will end up with a ton of inedible icing. I can tell you, however, that this mixture just works. And if it works for me, it will for you too.

9- As you are finishing adding the sieved icing sugar, get your food colouring (unless you like a creamy whiteness) and add a tiny splash (I prefer liquid colouring when I work with this sort of icing because it makes it infinitely more pliable, something you will appreciate when it goes into the sac à poche). If you taste the icing at this point, and it would be criminal not to, don't get disheartened by its polyfilla-like texture (and, quite frankly, taste, not that I have ever eaten polyfilla but...). It does work very well on the cakes, so spearhead to completion below.

10- Now choose an icing tip of your liking, assemble your kit, stick some of the icing in it and enjoy yourself. I iced from the outside in and then randomly scattered sugar sprinkles and sanding sugar. Naturally, I've used pink liquid colouring. Store these at the bottom of the fridge and don't worry about sticking them in a tin for freshness. They won't last that long.

None Of The Above

2010-05-06T12:19:00.006+01:00

As I dropped off my car for the MOT earlier this morning, I found myself killing time on the bus, scrolling through Twitter and actually reading what people had to say, which makes a change. I was amused by the election fever, mostly because I wish there was something in life I felt so utterly and moronically strong about, for not even grammar and violence to the English language would ever prompt me to plant a stick in my garden with It's and its are not the same thing you suckers! After all, we cannot all be David Crystals; I've accepted that a long time ago.

But what struck me was something else, this call to the vote because people before us died in order to give it to us. Wait a second, people died to have the opportunity, the choice, to vote or not to vote. They did not sacrifice themselves in order to oblige later generations to pick a candidate at all costs. I was also reading rabid comments of Labourists who really do hate Conservatives and vice-versa, and of Liberal Democrat supporters who hate both Labourists and Conservatives, naturellement. This is, to me, even more odd. I've got red friends and blue friends and yellow friends and I find them level-headed, intelligent, well-educated, decent people. What's with all of this political hate? Are these people for real?

Yes, there are annoying traits to all of these; I do not believe that helping the vulnerable should equal helping the slacker and the leech (and it always does according to a leftie government), neither do I believe that a privileged birth makes individuals better than others by default (and it always does according to a right-wing government), but I am also annoyed by the people in the middle who, while picking and choosing from within the best of the rest, end up leaving me under the distinct impression of a lack of decisional backbone. Thus I could not bring myself to vote for these alternatives, for they don't feel to me as such.

On the run up to this day I was extremely amused by Bigotgate; my God, a politician said one thing and thought another one? Who knew those things happened? I was shocked I am telling you, shocked. A few days later I met George Osborne, local Tory representative, and while he blabbed away to the masses, I must confess not to have heard a single thing, so distracted was I by his otherworldly placca face. I don't know about you but I am highly, highly, highly suspicious of a man who goes for the syringe, unless he is Brad Pitt (in fact, I wish Brad reached for it, as he is quickly becoming painful to look at, not something I would have expected of him). But in Cameron's (and Osborne's) case I have to say that just because you can do Botox, it really doesn't mean you should.

I also heard that Britain could descend into anarchy and revolution and, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I cannot imagine Britain as Gotham City gripped by the Joker-esque agent of chaos, 'I'll show you, when the chips are down, these people will eat each other'. Can you? Our explosive mix of apathy and calm upper-stiffness should ensure a smooth enough transition into more of the same, as it always does. We ain't Greeks bearing gifts.

Talks of a hung parliament always make think of other 'well hung' things, and then, of course, I also heard that if you don't vote you ain't entitled to complain when things aren't hunky-dory, which is like saying that unless you have kids yourself, you ain't allowed to pass an opinion on others' kids, or if you don't drink coffee, you ain't allowed to voice your views on Starbucks and Costa, or if you don't eat meat, you can't to discuss supermarkets' farming policies, or if you don't reek like a goat, you cannot complain about other people's body odour. How will I live without this wisdom thrown left, right and centre, twenty-four hours a day, every day, my friends? Blimey, I wish there was an election every week! The entertainment would never end.

So did I vote? Sure I did! I always feel important about voting you know, a bit like being able to pay a stack of bills by cheque instead of credit card, a sentiment that hasn't really gone away despite my growing into a spiteful resident who resents Council Tax as much as fly-tipping and egg-throwing. And so I voted as I always vote my friends, none of the above. And if you have voted for anyone else, that's ok by me.

A Recipe Of My Own

2010-05-04T17:18:00.004+01:00

I am a slave to the recipe. When I bake cakes, cookies and brownies I never ever improvise, for baking is an exact science and one cannot add, increase or remove ingredients and just hope for the best. So today I surprised myself when I started thinking of cupcakes and had a good look at my sugar pantry, where all sorts linger. I wanted to use a pack of golden caster sugar and figured that I may have ended up with a slightly toffee-y cupcake if I tried hard enough. Now they are ready, resplendent in their icing and waiting for quality control. And if it has worked, I am going to tell you how to make them.

Not-so-holiday-like

2010-05-03T21:12:00.001+01:00

Well, I must admit that these three days off haven't been what I had hoped for. Granted, it didn't rain, unlike many other places in England, but it wasn't just all a bit blah because of the cold weather really. I've been feeling under the weather for a couple of days and, wouldn't you know it, those couple of days just happened to be the long weekend. Well, I guess there's another one at the end of May, right?

Yesterday, however, I didn't limit myself to the risotto, for I also made some lemon biscuits which I then turned into small cream cheese bites. These are lethal, for they are very much like shortbread, except for a deceptive lightness. They did not last long but as it is already evening and I must confess to be really tired and deflated, the recipe will have to wait.

Pepper Risotto

2010-05-02T19:51:00.001+01:00

If I were to choose my favourite risotto it would be a toss up between saffron and tomato. There is something about primary colours and risotto you see... But this evening I tried something I had in mind for a while, that is a variation of the classic red risotto, for the base was not just celery and onion but pepper too. It was lovely, especially as I did the mantecatura with a nice red yolk, a teaspoon of mascarpone and one of crème fraîche. A great culinary end to an otherwise non descript Bank Holiday Sunday, with clouds low in a sky and a really nippy wind wafting from the north.

You’ll need:

Serves 3-4 or maybe just 2 if very hungry

350g Arborio rice
a fistful of basil leaves
a small red pepper
200g of chopped tomatoes (tinned or in a carton... that sort of thing)
one egg yolk
a teaspoon of mascarpone
a teaspoon of crème fraîche
a small stick of celery
a small onion
sea salt

You’ll do it like so:

Chop the pepper, stick of celery and small onion into tiny pieces and then attack it with the mezzaluna for as long as you can bear. Remember that this is supposed to be the base of your risotto; you ain’t supposed to find big chunks of pepper in it so weild the mezzaluna for a good while. Now add a glug of oil to your pan set on high heat and fry the basil leaves in it.

Soon after, add the celery, pepper and onion (which at this point is called the soffritto, if you care to know) and stir with a wooden spoon for a scant minute or so. Add the dry rice, stir quickly, add half a carton of chopped tomatoes and stir again.

Now lower the heat to low (but not so low that it stops simmering...) and add some boiling water. I know that ‘some boiling water’ is hardly descriptive but, really, bear in mind that the rice is supposed to cook slowly for about 20 to 25 minutes. I keep my kettle ready for action as I am stirring and see that the pan is drying out. The point here is, don’t let it dry out, but continue adding boiling water (and check for salt too) every time the rice absorbs it.

After a good 20 minutes the rice will be just about ready. Get your egg yolk into a glass and add the mascarpone and crème fraîche to it. Stir quickly and pour it into the risotto, stirring well and giving it a last blast of heat on the stove. Now serve it in bowls with a dusting of Parmesan and two leaves of basil for a little decorative flair. Done to death, I know, but I love the green-on-red all the same...

Pick Me Right Up!

2010-05-01T19:43:00.002+01:00

It will come as a surprise to read that, before today, I had yet to make a tiramisù. It’s a bit of an oddity because I am extremely well-versed with cakes, sweets, puddings, desserts and even truffles and tiramisù is such a basic super-classic that one would think I have made countless. In truth, I had to resist its appeal for two reasons: Rich doesn’t like coffee and the prospect of eating an entire slab of this dessert, while appealing in principle, would do my waistline no good, and, of course, tiramisù is so simple, so child’s play to make that it has always seemed slightly pointless to be wasting my time on it while I could be trying something complicated and of greater effect.

But then... how can I call this most fabulous dessert pointless? I love tiramisù, because I love coffee and because of the quaint affection for its name. It means ‘pick me up’ not as in ‘a pick me up’ but as in ‘pick me up!’ and there is something so appealing about a dessert that guarantees you an immediate mood lift that finally, today, I caved in and thought, sod it, I’ll eat it all myself.

Before I give you the recipe, let me spare a few words on the sponge fingers you should use. These are no ordinary sponge fingers, they are savoiardi, a very specific type of biscuit that is soft below and sugary and crackly on top. Now the problem with savoiardi here in England is that we can only find them at the supermarket, unlike in Italy, where patisseries make them daily. Of course, you can also buy them at the supermarket there, but you’d be a fool to do so when they are baked fresh every morning. This means that the savoiardi we must make do are stiff and, compared to the fresh variety, stale.

When I indicate below that you should dip them in tepid coffee and arrange them in your serving dish, I mean do so in double-quick time. A second too long and they will become so soggy as to lumber you with a watery tiramisù and you so don’t want that. Equally, dip them too quickly, and you’ll end up with a base that you cannot cut into with a fork, as, in fact, you should be able to do. Therefore proceed swiftly at the dipping stage, but not too swiftly.

You’ll need:

3 large eggs, separated
150g caster sugar
250g mascarpone (which is a cream cheese sold in tubs)
2 packs of savoiardi (the sponge fingers)
500ml of coffee
cocoa for dusting
a serving dish about 30 cm x 23 cm, nicer with glass, although I made do with a baking tray, pah!

You’ll do it like so:

Begin by making the coffee. I use a medium moka, which means I put it on twice in order to yield about 500ml of coffee. Once this is ready, pour it into a shallow dish or bowl or whatever container will make the dipping of the savoiardi easy for you and leave it to cool.

Whip the three egg whites in a bowl until very stiff, then leave aside.

Now whip the three egg yolks with the sugar in another bowl (no need to wash the beaters, yay!) until they have at least tripled in volume and are huge and soft and white and just delicious-looking.

Add the mascarpone to the whipped egg yolks and give it a quick beating. Now leave the beaters aside and fold in the egg whites with a spoon, trying to maintain the volume as much as possible.

Once you’re done with that, spoon some of this cream on the bottom of your dish and then begin dipping the savoiardi one by one in the cooled coffee (yes, quickly but not too quickly!). Arrange on the bottom side by side and fill your dish. Once the first layer is done, spoon more of the cream on top, level it, then continue the dipping of the savoiardi and the layering. Once you’re done with the second layer, spoon the rest of the cream on top, level it nicely, grab a tea strainer and dust with cocoa generously.

Place the dish in the fridge for a good two hours and then enjoy with an espresso or, failing that, a good old cup of tea. Dead easy and it’s taken me longer to type this up than to make it!

Me Evening

2010-04-21T20:50:00.001+01:00

I love Wednesday evenings. That’s because I love Wednesdays in general, maybe because I was born on a Wednesday (yes, and I definitely am mercurial), but especially when Rick goes out pooling. He believes that I don’t like him going out in the evening without me, but the reality is, I love it. I love it because I love time to myself, and even if I spend my days to myself, I also love the weekly evening when I get to do exactly what I want.

Usually, this is writing which, really, give you an idea of how bloody dangerously I live these days, but no matter, because on Wednesday evenings, I also get to re-do my nails, to watch Hugh Grant movies (not that Rick doesn’t like them mind you, but I am sure that, deep down, I love Hugh more than he does) or maybe You’ve Got Mail and I get the bed all to myself. That’s where I am now and with all of the books on it, proofs, journals and an empty plate there would certainly not be space for a man.

Wednesday evenings are peculiar times also because it’s the only time of the week when I feel really utterly at peace. No matter how much I stress during the day, when I lit a stick of incense, sit back with the laptop and sip the tea, everything that aggravates me feels unimportant and irrelevant as I tell myself, what the fuck, tomorrow’s another day. There should be more Wednesdays in the week. Yes, definitely.

At The Park

2010-04-18T17:48:00.002+01:00

What I said yesterday was prophetic. William and Victoria went to bed at 8 pm and did not stir until 8.20 am. William especially looked particularly wooden, but I guess he seems to forget that he is pushing eleven and that he should give signs of some sorts when he wants to stop instead of cranking up the pace and scuttling ahead of the rest of us. In any case, he was pliable enough to hop into the car at 10 for a trip to Tatton Park. Tatton is flat and only gently hilly; I am sure both he and Victoria were grateful I didn’t think that another stop at Styal would have bettered their fitness. We had a really nice walk and then went around Knutsford too, where I took some pics of one of my favourite spots, the cemetery and the church. And now it is evening and I cannot believe that it’s Monday again tomorrow. Another five days to pretend I am working...

In The Woods

2010-04-17T17:33:00.000+01:00

Today I went back to Styal but instead of walking around the mill or the manicured gardens, I took William and Victoria around the so-called Northern Woods. We had been around before on a couple of occasions, but this time we pounded the stones steps, the slopes, the uphill inclines and absolutely everything in between for a good two hours. We were, eventually, all panting, even though I am pretty certain that tomorrow I will be the only one without wooden paws (thank you Tracy).

A Miracle

2010-04-14T14:45:00.003+01:00

Yes, a miracle, I am witnessing a miracle-in-the-making, I'm telling you. Three weeks ago I started doing the Tracy Anderson Mat Workout, something I had been hankering after for a while as I was getting all nice and flexi with my yoga. I started yoga almost a year ago, doing it religiously most days and can now bend over backwards which, for someone with a spinal injury, is one heck of a big deal. But, you know, I am no different from the vast majority of women out there who aren't really after flexibility but the body of a goddess. I cannot expect ever to Look That Good, as not even sixteen hours worth of weekly gym turned me into the fleshy version of the Venus de Milo, but I think that thirty is a bit too early to jack it in and a wardrobe filled with clothes that cost more than an Aga is worth working (hard and out) for.

And now, I am witnessing a miracle: my body is changing and very rapidly to boot. I know that this Tracy Anderson has a reputation for knowing how to chisel a body, but I've often thought that it isn't her association with Gwyneth that makes her worthy of my stamp of approval, for Gwyneth has always been a weed and toning up as a weed is infinitely easier than toning up as a watermelon. The real poster girls for the Tracy Anderson Method are the women whom she puts through their paces on the lesser-viewed YouTube videos she's got and not the professional actresses or singers who are underweight by two stones as a matter of course.

I've done the whole programme fifteen times and, I kid you not, I can see side grooves running lengthwise by my tummy (never seen such a thing). My humongous bottom is being lifted from the middle, the top of my thighs is reducing in size by the day and I've even developed little biceps. I've never seen anything like this this fast. I need to warn you though: this isn't for wimps. For the first week, the gasps of agony (during and after) stirred my dogs, which is really quite something. They did not move from their beds but did look up at me on a few occasions looking more than slightly concerned. And with reason, I'd say, as walking around, getting in and out of bed, picking up my arms to reach the keyboard were tasks that brought grimaces to my face and little gasps of pain into the open. After a week it got better. After two weeks the agony disappeared. Now I work through it without making a sound, only leaving a small puddle of sweat at my feet.

But, dear friends, the results are outstanding. I cannot wait to see what I will look like by my birthday. You know what the say... lots of pain, lots of gain.

Porcini Sauce

2010-04-12T14:18:00.002+01:00

Gosh I am slacking in tracking my modest life. I must confess that when my day is spent writing or editing, all I want to do in the evening is to flop in front of a DVD (and hopefully I'll flop on something soft like my bed, and not the floor). So that's my excuse today. Indeed it ain't an excuse at all but I hope that a little recipe will redeem me.

I've recently acquired a very generous stash of dried porcini (mushrooms) and I put that between brackets because porcini are mushrooms and that's it, there are no porcini apples or porcini pears and so it goes without saying that they are, indeed, mushrooms. Sorry, I digress all the time. So this stack of dried porcini makes one heck of a fabulous sauce which you can use for pasta or for polenta or even if you fancy a teaspoon on a chargrilled piece of toast (as I like mine... very, very toasted...!).

Today I am going to give you the recipe which is extremely easy in its execution provided you hover by the pan for two hours. Yes, that's right. Don't put this sauce on and go soak in the tub because you'll return to a pan which will require a pick to clean up. I put my phone on 10-minute alarm intervals and returned to check and add a little bit of water as the porcini were simmering. This is the method you should use and one that will guarantee a sauce with a delicate, subtle taste and a pan that you can wash off straight afterwards. And also, don't be fooled by the look of the porcini: they really are going to be ready after two hours and not before.

You'll need:

60g dried porcini
a fistful of flat-leafed parsley
a tiny garlic clove
a glug of olive oil
sea salt

You'll do it like so:

1- Weight your porcini and then put them to soak in tepid water for 10 minutes. During this time they will swell and will begin to look like slugs. Don't be put off (although I know you won't if you're French)! Keep calm and carry on! As soon as the 10 minutes have elapsed, rinse the porcini really, really well. This is vital because they can taste sandy if you don't wash and rinse well. Squeeze the extra water through a sieve, then plonk your porcini, the garlic clove and the parsley on a chopping board.

2- Grab your mezzaluna and attack the mushrooms and the parsley until you are left with very small pieces of the former and the latter has pretty much disintegrated under your weapon (NB: wonder why my mushrooms above look whole? Because I always leave a few).

3- Now coat lightly a small frying pan with oil, warm it up, add the mushrooms and swish around the pan for a little while, until the heady aroma of parsley (lovely) and garlic (yuk) hits you. Lower the heat to medium-low, add some hot water and a little bit of sea salt and be vigilant as I described above. The sauce must simmer gently for a couple of hours, during which you will check for salt. After the time is up, use it straight away or decant it in whatever container to be stored in the fridge for use within a week.

After The Holiday

2010-04-06T11:40:00.007+01:00

Ah to return to work after a holiday, however brief! When I used to hate my job, the Tuesday after was always traumatic. To wheel my computer bag through a carpark or up and down the Tube escalators was the epitome of failure. Here I am, returning to the same old crap, while I could have a parallel life, a happy working life. How well I remember. Now I am sitting here grinning ear-to-ear, as it is way past midday, I am still in my bed pants and I've ticked more tasks off my list in the past ninety minutes than I used to when I had to turn up on the job at 7 am for the ubiquitous, and much hated, conference call with the colleagues from Hong Kong.

Over the past few days, I've felt inanely serene. Yes, serene. I cannot say often to feel serene because I believe that a Virgo (or is it Virgoan? I don't know) is always a little anxious by nature. These days though, my anxiety is rooted in possibility, in creativity, in connecting and in The New. Isn't that what spring is all about, The New? I think this is the reason why I hanker after new clothes so badly, because I want to project this feeling of New to the outer world as well. Easter encapsulated The New like no other day of the year; the new life, the redemption, the novelty, the beginning, the rising from the ashes like a phoenix or from the dead like Jesus. It is a really fabulous message even when outside my pear tree is struggling to sprout the bare minimum as the sky stays white and low and promises all but blue, at least for today.

Still, the past four days weren't as ghastly as predicted by the Met Office, as you can see above, and I personally basked in a glory of chocolate, a bit of work, a bit of cooking and having Rick around all the time.

Almost Seven

2010-03-28T18:55:00.003+01:00

It’s almost 7 pm, except it isn’t because it’s really almost 6 pm. I feel like I’ve been up for two days straight, as William was up ultra-early this morning and now that this pointless exercise otherwise referred to as British Summer Time has started, we will have to fight the light for even longer than usual. Over the past three weeks or so I’ve woken up at 5.45 am, as I just cannot abide it filtering through and getting worse as days go by. At least it ain’t Norway where I once found myself in late May and where the sun almost never set, but it was so blue and clear today that... well... waking up wasn't that great.

Tortured as I was at 8 am (no, at 7 am), I got up and decorated the cupcakes I prepared yesterday. These are, again, the Banoffee Cupcakes from Eat Me, which I told you about here, but this time I covered them in Mr Whippy-like icing, a mixture of Golden Syrup, egg whites, cream of tartar, salt and sugar whipped for ten minutes in a double-boiler. I adore this icing because it holds its shape beautifully and because it looks swirled in a rather complex manner when, really, you just whack it on with a spoon and twirl upwards and away. Pink sanding sugar from Williams-Sonoma, if you care to know.

Then I wrote for an hour, took notes, looked at my pictures, strung buttons on a wire thread and generally lounged about, even forgetting that it was Palm Sunday and that I would have got a little branch of olive if I had made it to the church. Well, never mind, the big celebration is next Sunday anyway. But then I must confess that, although Easter is by far the most important celebration of the Christian calendar, I am never that excited by it. Yes, I hang my head in great shame! I am not excited by Easter!

Deep down I know what it is: it’s all to do with the pastel colours of spring and with the whole springy-ness related to new beginnings. Well, I don’t believe in new beginnings in spring, I believe in new beginnings in autumn or even in January. But I’ve checked the weather forecast and if I am lucky it may get really cold again this week. And then it will be a bit like Christmas rolled into Easter, yippe! I can live in hope.

This Is Not A Pen

2010-03-24T18:43:00.004Z

That’s right, this is not a pen. A pen is my gold Bulgari fountain pen that cost a mint and was given to me in its own leather box. No, this blue thing right here is a piece of me, an olfactory epiphany like no other.

I first bought the Uni Ball Signo Blueberry Scent in 2006. I found it in PaperChase, amidst a million of other similar things. Except this one was scented. I bought in bulk, but by the following year, I’d run dry. No bother, as on a trip to Paris in the autumn, I found myself in a quaint and mouthwatering stationery shop in St Germain des Prés and there it was again, the Blueberry Signo, the most delectable olfactory experience since Marmite hit the hot plate of the George. I bought all the ones they had but, alas, fast-forward to 2008 and again I was out.

This morning I had to go out after a four-day hiatus spent holed up with tea, computer and books. I walked straight past the stationery shop even though I knew that I was really out because in desperate need of envelopes. When I returned, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the Scented Signos stacked neatly by the till, in all of their scented plastic glory.

I’LL HAVE THIIIIIIS

The shrill in my voice was not lost on the shop assistant who smiled and said: ‘Aren’t they lovely? And they smell so!’. And off I went on a monologue about how many happy notebook pages the Blueberry Signo has filled over the years, most notably during a lone visit to Paris when I was listening to the Louvre taped guide and taking notes with it. Oh happy, happy, happy memories. Oh happy, happy, happy return. I am going to buy all I find this time. I’ll never run out again. And that, my dear reader, was my day.

Of Baking And Reading

2010-03-23T18:33:00.003Z

I don’t understand why people don’t cook onions more often. And I don’t mean as the staple basic item that always goes, and should go, in casseroles, soups, risotti and all else, but on their own. I’ve meant to say this many times on here and lest I forget this time as well, here is what I think: onions are at their very best when boiled until they are very soft, drained and dressed with salt, vinegar and oil. Gosh my mouth is watering. And don’t worry, please don’t worry about reeking of onion; you won’t, it’s only raw onion that will make you stink to high Heaven.

Now that I got that one off my chest, I should tell you of my return to baking. It took place at the weekend, perhaps unsurprisingly, as I spent the previous two days ticking things off Eat Me, a delightful pink book by Cookie Girl.

So I picked the Banoffee Cupcakes and the Lemon Meringue Cupcakes and they both turned out fantastically awesome, even though I decorated the banoffee ones with a slice of strawberry but I guess I really wanted to go saccharine sweet in the style stakes and I don’t think that a sliver of banana cuts it as well as one of strawberry. Do you agree? Or don’t you agree? In any case I am now hankering after Lakeland’s piping set (which I already mentioned here) and I can’t stop thinking about all of the other cupcakes I can try. I really ought to fill the cupboards with chocolate as well as we are rushing towards Easter and I am convinced I can make my own egg this year.

I’ve also been reading a novel which is something I rarely do. It surely seems odd to be a literary person stating that I don’t really read novels, especially when it ain’t quite an accurate statement. There surely would be no English degree and no PhD if I had not read plentiful. But over the last year or so I have mainly concentrated on non-fiction, thus relegating the memory of fiction to the long-lost days of summer holidays spent on a beach (and this was... oh my God... a lifetime ago). Being the person who doesn’t judge a book by its cover but chooses it on its merits, I picked up The Elegance of the Hedgehog, as its pictorial reference right here reminded me of many happy times in France.

I am barely half-way through it and I am enjoying it very much, except for a vague sense of pretentiousness poking out from between the lines. When I am done with this, I think I will read Dr Zhivago. Just thinking about it thrills me. It thrills me because I know nothing of it. Strange to be admitting to ignorance, right? Well, I am not afraid of confessing that there are books that have always been present in my life, and yet in a removed state, a bit like certain actors. Robert Downey Junior springs to mind, a guy I’ve always been aware of but never quite followed. Like the stench of disinfectant in Starbucks if you sit near to the toilet you know? Something you know it’s there but you do a great job of ignoring. And so it was with Dr Zhivago, a book (or movie) that many people mention in passing but that I know nothing of. Not for long though. Thrills I am telling you, frigging thrills...

Time Flies

2010-03-18T17:50:00.000Z

I am, in a way, on fire. It’s a funny thing to say, ‘being on fire’, because someone on fire is usually running around trying to put the fire off. Crucially, this someone needs to put the fire out pretty quickly if he hopes to survive. But being on fire figuratively speaking means that you’re bursting with ideas, even when following them up requires much thought, much planning and an awful lot of attention to a rack of potential issues.

Still, I don’t mind being on fire, even though I have to sit myself down, and have to keep myself there, for an insane stretch of time. I am plotting out the workshop I am going to run in May and I am finally getting somewhere. I’ve always known what I wanted the workshop to be about, but that is quite a different thing from knowing exactly how it will unfold. And so it has been a busy week and again tomorrow is Friday and ten minutes after that it will be Monday again and so on and so forth.

It seems only five minutes since I wrote that we were careering towards the end of January and, already, Easter is around the corner. Since leaving my old job, and that’s one year and a half ago, I’ve been acutely aware of the passing of time. I don’t know whether it preoccupies me or whether it doesn’t bother me, but, yes, I’ve been realising more and more that everything is in a rush, including the ticking clock. Who knew? When I used to spend very long days holed up in the office in the city, time proceeded with the grace and speed of a geriatric tortoise; now it leaps and bounds like a young hare. You know what they say... time flies when you enjoy yourself, right? I guess it must be true.

Spinach Cake

2010-03-13T20:04:00.003Z

How long has it been since I posted a recipe? Too long my friends, but I am going to rectify it right away with the most fantastic spinach quiche you'll ever taste. Try this and you'll never, ever buy one from the supermarket again.

You'll need:

a narrow, rectangular cake tin (think Madeira cake-sized), lined
500g spinach, better if not frozen
150g grated Parmesan
200g single cream
4 egg whites
salt
pepper
nutmeg

You'll do it like so:

Warm the oven to 170C.

Wash your spinach and boil them for about five minutes. Drain and squeeze the water out of them with your hands or a wooden spoon (and the spoon is better if your hands aren't made of asbestos).

Put the spinach in a large bowl and add the egg whites, the Parmesan, the cream, a pinch of salt and pepper, and half a teaspoon or so of freshly grated nutmeg. Get the electric whisker fitted with the dough hook and whizz away until all ingredients are well incorporated. Quality control for salt and pepper and then scoop it all into the tin lined with baking parchment or, as I do, with a cake-tin liner to size.

Place the tin in a larger tin and add hot water to the tin containing the tin NOT to the tin containing the spinach (you're doing a water bath). Place in the oven for a good 80 minutes, or until the top of your cake looks nice and ready, as per pic above. Take out of the oven and leave to cool for about 20 minutes, after which you can unmould the cake and slice away.

Like all quiches and flans, this is particularly good the day after, if only you can bear to wait that long that is...

Whoozy

2010-03-11T20:22:00.005Z

It’s past 8 pm and Rick is on his way back from London. It’s been one heck of a long day. I woke up at 5.45 am, got up at 6.45 am and have only just stopped after having fed the guys and fed myself. Late this afternoon, just before I tortured myself on that bloody exercise bike, I captured twilight as the sun was disappearing. Who knew that my own back garden could be this beautiful? I’ve taken lots of pics lately, and from snow to blue sky to pink sky, it is turning into a picture-perfect spot. And I never even noticed...

Another week has whizzed by and I’ve barely kept track of it. Lots of exciting things are happening and I continue to slack on the recording aspect of it. Perhaps if I didn’t work myself into the ground during the day, I would be able to make some time for this activity in the evening. As for now, quite frankly, I cannot wait to hit the sack, even though my head is a flurry of ideas. But above all of this, there is one thing that demands my attention: Tom Ford lipsticks coming to all Tom Ford counters from 24 April (click below to read). I’ve seen them in VOGUE and they keep popping into my mind. As does Tom himself. But then... he’s always done, he looks like one hell of a sex god.

Well Alert

2010-03-07T18:38:00.004Z

It's been a weekend of crisp, cold weather and of coffee and work. Lots of work, in fact. I dare say I spend all of my days, weekends included, working. Pages, upon pages for my site; workshop and course plans; advertising and networking; you name it, I do it. I don't even make the time to write to my friends, let alone see them, as my own survival is currently more important that the much loved sit-in with a cuppa.

It won't last forever though. My plan right here indicates that, a few weeks down the line, I should be able to have a few days off and to go back to Tatton Park, as I always love to do, in company of a couple of dogs. My financial projections for this month indicate that I should be able to survive to its end, after which another handout from dad and maybe another piece of paid work would come in handy. At the same time though, I am all thrilled and hopeful and the Oscars take place tonight and all is quite well in Steph's world.

My Valentine

2010-03-03T17:29:00.003Z

I don’t remember whether I mentioned this or not, but months ago I organised a Valentine’s exchange with my friends from the Unravelling private Flickr boards. I suggested we all jumped in with scissors, glue and whatever else and sent an especially decorated Valentine’s box (see the Secret Santa). As I am the one organising these exchanges, the surprise factor (or perhaps I should say the secret factor) doesn’t apply, but this doesn’t make it any less exciting to receive the prized possession, especially if one has been waiting for three weeks.

My box came from a friend in Slovakia and was full of adorable goodies, including a hand-made lavender heart (the sort of things that I also love to make myself, as you’ve seen in the past), beautiful prints (she is a pro photog), chocos and vintage pics of Paris that come from one of Prague’s antique shops. I love to think of items winding their way around the world throughout the decades, which is the reason why I particularly cherished the copy of Biographia Literaria which I bought in New York years back. It was an Everyman edition and came from England, Bristol if I remember correctly, as it was scribbled on the bookmark. I speak in the past because, as you may remember, Victoria shredded it last year. I guess that, despite being a book of the world, that copy eventually went on a journey too many which can only mean one thing: I need to get back to New York and find another book to return to its homeland.

Eight Today

2010-03-02T21:27:00.001Z

Victoria is eight today and can’t wait to get hold of that slice of cake baked for this very special occasion. I hope you had a good one birthday girl!

Hello March

2010-03-01T17:25:00.000Z

The new month started with a whiff of burnt wood as I opened my window this morning and continued with a scattering of hail in the afternoon. In between, there has been sunshine and bitter cold. I guess we are approaching spring in some ways; after all spring here means cutting wind one second and tepid sun the next.

But do you know something? I don’t care. Yes, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter whether it rains or shines, whether it’s polar or tropical out there. It doesn’t matter because I’ve had the stroke of genius of all stroke of geniuses regarding my business. One month in and I am going to start monetasing the venture, which of course was the reason for jumping in to begin with.

I am plugging away all day and there is much to do this week in particular as I need to add new pages to the website, straighten a few things and change a few others. In any case, it’s creativity steaming ahead here, even though I did take a few minutes out this morning to ask myself why on earth all of this didn’t occur to me before. I guess that’s why there is a process and then there is a product.

This Week

2010-02-28T16:41:00.006Z

I've had the most ridiculously emotional week, feeling up, down, down down, up, down, up, down, down for no discernible reason. I realise that these things happen to the best of us but I also think that sometimes I would prefer physical ailments to emotional ones. After all, when you've got the flu you just sleep and wait for it to pass. When you feel emotional, you're lucky if you can sleep.

However, I finished the week on a high note, a culinary one, see below.

Still, the recipe I would like to give you, and maybe I will do so tomorrow, is one for a most delicious green beany curry, something that I've tweaked and cooked twice this week and that I thought was very delicious on both occasions.

Other than this, work on my pro website is going really well and I am so excited I cannot even get to sleep at night. My feelings of uneasiness this week have prevented me from writing on here and even in my red journal. It is still so beautiful and smells so good that I really did not want to mar it with what will become sour memories, years down the line. I hope things will feel better from tomorrow and there will be more reasons to keep track of all of the great things I am doing in the face of a certain degree of adversity.

More White Stuff

2010-02-22T12:25:00.003Z

I kept myself to myself last week, not simply because I needed some writing re-grouping, so to speak, but also because I rather love to make plans (no matter how far-fetched) and lists (no matter how pointless). Writing is an isolating job for sure, but I must confess that I would find it harder to deal with people on a daily basis than I do to deal with my own personal demons, annoying and boring as they are even to myself.

Early on Sunday morning it snowed and so I woke up to another white garden.

Sadly, it isn't as cold as it was at the beginning of January and today, although a little of the white stuff has survived, there's hardly anything left anywhere, as the sun is shining brightly and as we are on the cusp of winter-heading-to-spring. Birds are chirping and although there is no sign of vegetative life, at least not on the trees in my immediate proximity, there is in the house, where the bulbs I planted last week have already shot up and bent over themselves. I may need to rescue them later.

We are almost a week into Lent already and I've yet to make my mind up as to what to do on the way to bettering myself. I tentatively tried the 'stop swearing' thing, and quickly realised it was an unachievable task. I suppose that something even harder would be 'stop beating yourself up'. I am currently running the Unravelling exercise over at our private boards on Flickr and I made it an assignment on self-love. And, guess what, almost nobody is doing it. Interesting to see how we are all masters of flagellation instead.

On related reflections I should add that the whole poetry thing was really hard. There was much I wanted to keep track of during Valentine's week and I forgot it all on the basis of sharing poems instead. I'm gonna have to make sure I don't do that again for sure...!

Post-Valentine Hang-Over

2010-02-17T17:12:00.005Z

I always, always, always get it; this big emotional slump, this dip within my thoughts always hit me after the Valentine/anniversary thing is over. I had a fantastic three days, even though I didn't do anything incredibly out of the ordinary, and today I woke up cranky and annoyed and I am not even sure why. It's not like we can stop time after all. I knew that the Valentine Three Dayer, as I call it, would be just that, three days, but getting out on the other side is a depressing affair all the same.

I guess there are mixed feelings in it for a multitude of reasons, chief amongst them the constant dichotomy of being alone and feeling lonely. They are not one and the same and I think I am not saying anything new there. Then of course there is all of this detestable crap relating to household management which at the moment means sorting out my cracked drive. Earlier today I was writing in my diary (the paper one) that I want everything to end. No more annoyances, anguish, pain, stress, feelings of inadequacy or loneliness. When last week I heard that Alexander McQueen had killed himself I burst into tears as if I had known him personally. People just do not realise how bad life is until one goes out with a hell of a bang and then they look at each other and wonder what they could have done to help. For a start, offer to help, I'd say, and then we'll see.

Yesterday I went to York, which I had only visited in passing many years ago when I stayed at the uni with the fencing team. Well, it is one heck of a charming place and it is true that its cathedral is one of the most beautiful ones. It was sunny but extremely nippy; for a few hours there was just me and beauty itself.

Valentine

2010-02-13T15:07:00.000Z

By Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife

2010-02-12T14:00:00.000Z

By Sir Henry Wotton

He first deceased: She for a little tried
To live without Him: liked it not, and died.

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art

2010-02-11T19:37:00.002Z

By John Keats

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –
No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

From The Vicar of Wakefield

2010-02-10T18:53:00.002Z

By Oliver Goldsmith

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can sooth her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is – to die.

Recension Day

2010-02-09T16:15:00.001Z

By Duncan Forbes

Unburn the boat, rebuild the bridge,
Reconsecrate the sacrilege,
Unspill the milk, decry the tears,
Turn back the clock, relive the years,
Replace the smoke inside the fire,
Unite fulfilment with desire,
Undo the done, gainsay the said,
Revitalise the buried dead,
Revoke the penalty and clause,
Reconstitute unwritten laws,
Repair the heart, untie the tongue,
Change faithless old to hopeful young,
Inure the body to disease
And help me to forget you please.

My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close

2010-02-08T21:11:00.001Z

It's Valentine's week and after that it will be my wedding anniversary which happens to fall on Shrove Tuesday this time, a great opportunity to stuff my face twice over. I decided to put my self aside this week in favour of sharing love poems, which is all I've been reading as of late (well, almost, together with Doctor Zhivago which, really, may not be a poem but it surely is about love).

Today, it's Emily Dickinson.

My life closed twice before its close –
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Massacre In A Bedroom

2010-02-07T17:00:00.000Z

Serves me right. Last night I thought that William and Victoria would have also enjoyed a bit of the Massacre and so gave them a minute spoon of it. I don’t know whether it was the pomegranate or the cream or the combo that didn’t agree with William but whatever it was, the poor darling spent a few hours looking extremely miserable until he spat out water until 2 am.

This morning, the first two hours of the day were spent in a bed-stripping-floor-washing exercise which eventually saw the little guy reclaiming his spot at midday. He is in very good spirits if only a little long-faced by the lack of sleep and I must confess that I, too, could do with a nap. See why I always say that those who want kids should always, always, always try out pets first?

Massacre In A Snowstorm

2010-02-06T18:57:00.002Z

Ah the good old pomegranate-meringue-whipped cream combo known as Massacre in a Snowstorm... who comes up with these names I wonder? Ok, it is definitely descriptive, but I cannot say to feel that inclined to eat what’s on the plate, especially after squeezing seeds our of the pomegranate which, you will forgive the graphic quality of what’s coming, always makes me think of squeezing one’s brains out. In fact, I must confess to finding pomegranates rather creepy, even though their juice is very delicious. Still, there are worse things... like fennels and having one’s blood taken.

The Sky At Five

2010-02-05T19:55:00.000Z

It seems odd to speak of a whiff of spring when earlier in the week it was snowing, but it is true that seasons waft into our sphere of perception long before our eyes notice them. This morning, despite a very plain beginning, I thought I caught a vague smell of spring and this evening, when I returned home after a brief visit to a friend, I noted that the sky was mellow and blue at five o’clock.

The Valentine Box

2010-02-04T17:02:00.001Z

I have spent part of my day decorating a Valentine's box for a friend who lives in the States. As my code-word for this year is CREATE, doing this seemed like an excellent way to head in the direction of doing, and not simply talking about doing. It has taken me over a week to get it to the stage whereby it is almost ready to go. I cannot show you too much on here but I can say that such occupations are fantastic anti-stress, if you forget that you're really a week behind and that the box won't reach its destination on time. Well, there's always the next box I guess.

Fashion-Aware

2010-02-03T15:12:00.007Z

Not long ago while zipping around Marks, doing my usual bee-line from knickers to food, I saw a woman peering at her reflection intently while holding up a nice enough nude shirt to her chest. I caught her eye and she said: 'What do you think? I am not sure about it'. To this I promptly replied: 'It suits you, it's the right nude for your complexion. And of course nude is going to be very in for spring-summer, buy it'. She was pleased I made the choice for her but also added what I think of as a super-classic conversation-killer: 'Oh I don't follow fashion, but I'll have this then, thanks.'

I smiled and moved on but as I was pushing my trolley around the aisles, I wondered whether I should have told her to watch The Devil Wears Prada. It's not often that movies reveal earth-shattering truths to mankind not previously communicated via other means, such as a classic novel or The Bible or Shakespearean plays. Even less often does an earth-shattering truth come from a little movie which straddles the chick-lit and mindless popcorn-flick categories as well as this one does. I cannot say that Legally Blonde, much as I adore it, has any particularly poignant piece of dialogue (I am willingly discounting this bit here of course: ENRIQUE: 'Chuck is just a friend...' CHUCK: 'You beeeeach!').

There is a scene in The Devil Wears Prada however that makes for compelling viewing for all people out there who think they are unaffected by fashion, uninterested by it, and who never fail to make a dismissive point about it, often accompanying it with a flick of the wrist. I am not interested in fashion, I wouldn't know. This old thing here? Oh I don't know what year it was, I don't follow fashion. Fashion? What's that?

I always, always, always chuckle to myself when I hear such nonsense because I know something that these poor people do not know. Fashion is like taxes, death, hunger or the need for toilet paper. Fashion is ever-present and inescapable. You may choose to shun Vogue and Harper's, Harvey Nichols and Manolo, but even when you read Woman's Own and OK! and shop at GAP, Primark, Marks or some tragic market, you are buying something that was selected for you by the high-fashion cognoscenti, the ones that it is oh-so-much-fun to make a mockery of.

You don't need to watch the whole movie to get to its salient point. The key scene plays between Andrea, the clueless assistant, and Miranda, the editor. This is what Miranda says to her short-sighted lackey:

You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet, and you select... I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater isn't just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean.

And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.

However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.

Too damn true but seems like an awful lot of effort to go through when someone asks me whether she should buy the shirt, don't you think?

Miserable

2010-02-02T16:43:00.001Z

Miserable as in miserable weather. One day is serenity, the next day is misery, misery, misery. Like this:

As Phil predicted six more weeks of winter temperatures today (and I being in England predict six more months), I steam-rolled through the very hot deadline for my professor and submitted his application a whole three-and-a-half hours before the deadline. Oh joy, oh genius of efficiency. I heard he has more coming up and will be in touch soon, which left me with a smile on my face, for a combination of reasons, chief amongst them his appreciation of the time I spent on this job and the prospect of more of the same. It will be less stressful too, as I think I have learnt his CV by heart over the past two days.

I went out for a quick coffee and a stick of bread in the afternoon, not a time I am usually setting off, as habit has it that I am out first thing in the morning and back at 2 pm or thereabouts. Today though I had to do it the other way round and was surprised by how incredibly quiet both Starbee and the supermarket were at 3 pm. Maybe I need to re-think my strategy. Maybe I should stay holed up in the morning and then go out in the afternoon. If anything I should be able to avoid the nursery situation at Starbee, particularly bad on Monday mornings between 10 am and midday. Now, if only I managed to write something of note in the morning instead of starting to get going at the magic hour...

Serene

2010-02-01T21:03:00.001Z

Oh supreme utter joy, my favourite month has started and it promises plenty of exciting new things. Today I had to run a couple of quick errands before settling down to work and as I walked back swinging a bag full of eggs (not too much swinging going on obviously), I felt serene. Writing that makes me feel almost odd, as if I were not entitled to feel at least a little less anxious than I have done for quite some time. In truth, things have shifted for me very quickly, just as I had expected, and now it's Steph left, right and centre. I had to cancel what I had on tomorrow because I am doing an application for a professor (closing date, indeed tomorrow) and there is much else that I am pursuing. I may not well be a squillionare any time soon but I must confess that today I felt like one. Not one care in the world. And so I rewarded myself with some very-well deserved books.

Kitchen Porn

2010-01-31T20:13:00.006Z

Oh the joys of a weekend spent decorating a cardboard box, watching The Tudors, writing and reading...! If only every day could be like today, including the dusting of snow that greeted me upon the pulling apart of the curtains. One thing above others though stood out: a self-indulgent dive into the latest Lakeland catalogue.

Do you know of Lakeland? If you do, you will have probably smiled and nodded in recognition at my last sentence. If you don't, prepare to have your domestic life changed for evermore. I have never made a mystery of my dislike for house-related annoyances and I won't tell you about it again. I do, however, have a weird soft spot for house-related things and this explains why the simple thought of Williams-Sonoma or Crate & Barrel gives me a frisson of excitement almost on a par with thinking about the bags delicately perched on steel hooks poised on glass tables in Harvey Nichols.

I have spoken to many women about this and we all concur: there is something about the Lakeland catalogue that screams porn from its very cover and it works every time. I spent a very happy, very long time in its company this weekend, over-salivating over the brand new brownie pan (part of the bake to take range, genius), over their bumper pack of 120 assorted doylies (I could fold them into paper doves and use them as Easter decorations), over the vintage-looking Tala icing sets (in tins, I tell you, they come in tins), over the 3-in-1 jelly mould (the possibilities are endless or maybe just three), over the Valentine's Day pages (heart-shaped moulds, heart-shaped sprinkles, heart-shaped pasta, I was in heart-heaven) and over just about everything else. It's all so delectable, so well-photographed, so absolutely useful, so damn good for nothing I ever do that I want to get there tomorrow morning first thing after the vet and buy the entire store, including ten banana guards. Porn at its absolute very finest.

From Banal Fiction To Movie Masterpiece

2010-01-31T18:41:00.010Z

A few weeks ago, I was dragging my heels in the local library. I stumbled upon the French books and decided to pick something new, or at least new to me. Pity that the selection was so tiny and so obvious (Le Rouge et Le Noir for God's sake, who has studied French literature and hasn't read that one?!) that I had to resort to Le Journal de Bridget Jones or Bridget Jones's Diary. I know, you'll wonder where I have been for the past, oh I don't know, twelve, maybe thirteen years? I know that Fielding's novel is the original chick lit but I cannot say that even its standing as supreme crap-a-rola for girls ever enticed me past the back cover.

In French though, it seemed different. Indeed it seemed almost impossible that a male-obsessed, occasionally silly little fatty could even exist by virtue of tongue-relations in the land of the stick-thin and of le petit macaron. Of course France isn't all super-stylish and skinny my friends, I've lived there, but the myth persists, undeterred by statistics that trumpet les français too are getting fatter by the minute. Yes, but... you know statistics... two people, four slices of cake, one person eats three slices, one person eats one, statistics tell us that they both had two each. Moral of the story: proceed with caution when in France, chances are everyone you meet will still be thinner than you and everyone you know from home, minus twenty pounds.

But I digress because Le Journal de Bridget Jones may be in French but the story is still très anglaise. In truth though, I have nothing piercing to say about Bridget Jones, in this or in any other language. Of course the effervescent musicality of French means that banal pieces of information très obvious to any Briton sound like philosophical musings delivered by a witty, upper-class professor, see this bit right here:

Bref, tout le monde célèbre cet été exquis alors que je me morfonds. C'est peat-être la faute de notre tradition climatique. Nous n'avons pas la mentalité qu'il faut pour jouir du soleir and du ciel sans nuages qui sont pour nous des accidents rarissimes. Devant ce phénomène traumatique, nous paniquons: un instinct puissant nous dicte de fuir le bureau en courant, de nous déshabiller le plus possible and de nous coucher, a bout be souffle, dans l'escalier de secour.

The rest is a mix of slight vulgarity and same old same chick idiocy. Upon completion I was afflicted by a strong urge to watch the movie (and its sequel too, in one sitting). I realised then that, for all of the flack Hugh Grant (l'idiot anglais) and Colin Firth (he who only ever plays Colin Firth) normally get, the film-makers have taken a banal, average novel and have transformed it into a comical masterpiece I could never tire of watching. And I know that in the early days Bridget aficionados reeled at the casting of a then insignificant blondie as their fiesty (and brunette) heroine but the truth is, Renée Zellweger gives us a Bridget that is at once vulnerable, tender, intelligent, eventually self-assured, very funny and not at all vapid nor banal. In its very charming denouement Bridget Jones's Diary isn't chick lit par excellence any longer; it's a Hollywood miracle.

All Systems Go

2010-01-29T20:02:00.003Z

It has been one of those weeks. You start on Monday morning and five minutes later it is 8 pm on Friday evening. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, especially after such a draught in more ways than one, but I don't like it when time flies by so quickly that I don't know what day it is. I don't like it because this week I didn't manage to track anything at all of what I was thinking or doing not just on here but on the red Moleskine that only a handful of weeks back was teasing me, full of promises, opportunities, dreams and as-yet-un-thought ideas.

I flicked through it early and its latest pages are immaculate and very nearly still stuck together, as if I hadn't lived the days at all, but still functioned in expectation. I may have to up the ante next week and write deep into the night if need be, because I do not like this gap, not one bit. Meanwhile, work at the poet's has been steaming ahead. I returned home with an armful (make that two, actually) of poems to transcribe, a file to finish and a database to create. I am not quite done yet and there is the distinct possibility that part of Saturday will be dedicated to this, even though good, cold weather beckons from the Met office's page and a steaming hot Starbee with Rich, which I rarely have the opportunity to share, seems like an attractive enough proposition.

It's always a time of assessment and looking back January, isn't it, but the tax return has nothing to do with it (well, not in my case. I suppose that a payroll/accounting husband does come in handy once a year). It is a time of assessment because the exhilaration of a new year (and new diary) has long worn off and because life isn't half as dull and boring once we are comfortable into our everyday again. I always return to the mundane in January with a sense of sinking dread; two weeks into it and I think that, all in all, life ain't that bad; four weeks into it and I've forgotten to think about it.

This week I've been promoted to the role of co-editor of the selection of poems I've been working on. I was flabbergasted when my guy told me; in fact, I agonised over having given him the completely wrong impression for quite some time. I should have leapt out of my chair, hugged and kissed him, while I just stayed there and nodded in silence, looking less than impressed, I am sure. I rectified it all via email today, when I wrote that 'I shall be delighted to co-edit this book with you and thank you for this exciting opportunity'. It read a bit like a press release, not my style at all, but sometimes, when so many things whirr away in your head and you are working on ten different projects, including cutting out your own inner critic, only a press release will do.

Old Pics

2010-01-23T14:07:00.003Z

Since I got my first digital camera in 2004, I only ever printed forty of my pics. Meanwhile, iPhoto is housing 9023 shots. Yet on my bedside table there is one small stack of Polaroids that I took in 2003, when Victoria arrived. I came across these a few weeks back and now I often look at them because they enjoy the Pola-Charm, of course, but also because I had forgotten how much of a baby Victoria looked then, compared to now. In truth, I had also forgotten how pissed off William appeared. He was an only dog and was enjoying it. I would like to say that he eventually wiped that annoyed, introspective look off his face but...

Good Luck To You

2010-01-19T13:48:00.004Z

I am installed at the poet's and burrowing away at the archive. I've got my own, warm quarters, the gallery overlooks an exceedingly charming garden decorated with antlers, I heard foxes and owls at night, and the gentle fog raising from Sherwood Forest is the stuff of winter dreams. I must confess secretly to expect Robin Hood to burst into the study, handing me a wad of cash for my literary troubles and wishing me well with the rest of my life.

As I was leafing through mags, journals, collections, anthologies and cuttings, I came across Bogg, a poetry magazine apparently still in existence, at least according to a certain poetry website. I have been skim-reading an awful lot of info over the past two days, but one line in particular has stuck to memory, this one:

As always, editing is a subjective affair, and we print what takes our fancy.

Think I made that pearl of wisdom up? I've got photographic evidence, look closely:

I re-read it a few times, of course, just to make sure it really had been printed. The initial surprise at such degree of honesty was soon replaced with gratitude. Ah, you see? Someone who has the guts to tell writers that they operate within a subjective business and that tough shit if they don't like it! If only all editors were like this, if only they did not come up with a rack of statistical data and a far-fetched report on how your writing could be improved but in fact just said, I don't like it and that's why I won't publish it! The sooner you realise this is the way it works, the better it is dear writer. And, as ever, good luck to you, for you are going to need it.

I Found Heaven

2010-01-18T19:53:00.002Z

I am working in Heaven.

Seventeen

2010-01-17T18:34:00.005Z

Oh sweet Jesus. Seventeen today. The new year is seventeen days old today. It has passed the first mid-point and is careering towards the end of January. Any second now and it will be February and my wedding anniversary and then in no time at all it will be April. Then we will navigate the non-summer and then it will be my birthday, then Halloween, then Bonfire Night and then Christmas and then it will be 2011. Someone make it stop!

Ice-less

2010-01-16T20:31:00.000Z

I ventured outside today and felt hurt and cheated. Where has the snow gone? Where is the ice? Where is the gentle glistening of pavements and grasses? Where, I ask you? Bah humbug.

Insult To Injury Or Shit Magnet Part II

2010-01-15T20:01:00.003Z

On Monday evening, Rick and I had a look at the washing machine. We tilted it, removed the filter (completely clean, which surprised me), and even went through the trouble of removing the front bottom panel and to access hoses, the pump and the motor underneath. The top had already been removed. All looked in good order. Upon replacement of the last damn screw, it was with a sinking heart that I pressed START and bowed to the powers of the Bosch universe. The washer was humming as before, but was still not taking any water.

The day after, upon collection of my car which only cost a miserable £ 102 to fix which, you will agree, is a tiny price to pay for a not-at-all tiny car, I phoned Bosch, said that the removal of the filter and whatnot had yielded a non-result and that a technician was needed after all.

The guy turned up this afternoon as planned. He listened to the explanation of the symptoms, nodded slowly and
said: ‘Let’s see, shall we?’. He pressed the START button and immediately water swooshed from the tap into the drum. ‘Well, that’s odd,’ I said, brow furrowed and right hand scratching my chin, ‘I tried it many times the other night, after I put it back together, and it still wasn’t working’. He re-nodded and said that it probably wouldn’t drain. So we waited, seconds ticking away on the display, until we heard another swoosh, this time of water being released from the machine into the drain behind.

Much chit-chat followed as he played around with the programmes and got the washer (which I was by then silently referring to as The Bastard) to take the water, spin for a while, drain, spin and finish over and over. Then a few times more. I encouraged him to take it apart and put it back together. Crazy? Moi? No, it’s just that I badly wanted to get my £ 85 worth of call-out charge you see.

When I waved him goodbye, a scant twenty minutes after he had arrived, I proceeded to my chair at the dining room table, where I slumped, angry and defeated. Much more defeated than angry, if truth be told. I am sliding down the slippery slope of the comically unlucky ones, of those who are followed around by a thundering cloud, of those who are afflicted by the Negative Midas Syndrome, turning everything they approach into lead and everything they touch into shit.

No matter how well I think I do, no matter how hard I try (and I cannot say that taking a washing machine apart is dead easy), someone, something, somewhere conspires against me, so that every time I’ve got a fistful of dollars in my hand, I must immediately flush them down the nearest available toilet. I wouldn’t feel this conspired-against if I knew that my £ 85 went, say, to Haiti, or to cats and dogs in need, or to the preservation of our national heritage. To know that, effectively, they have flapped out of my house on the way to nowhere because of a working washing machine bamboozles me, yes!

At this point you may ask the obvious: but what happened to the washing machine? Why was it not working anyway? I don’t know dear reader, neither did the technician, who suggested, after much prodding from my part, that it may have frozen (mid-cycle? After another cycle I had just run? I am not sure of that one). The truth is that I’ll never know, you will never know, the machine will never know, the technician will never know and the £ 85 will never know either.

Late Afternoon

2010-01-14T18:00:00.000Z

Holed Up

2010-01-13T16:21:00.002Z

Impalpable, minute flurries have been falling all day. The paw prints in the garden are filling up, while my drive is again veiled in white. I do not mind it all, in fact, if only it continued. Watching the seasons unfold is one of life’s great pleasures as far as I am concerned, especially when I feel not quite ok or indeed very much under the weather.

For a split second this morning, as I walked back from the dry cleaning, my purple silk dress flapping in its thin plastic cover, I considered going out for a coffee. You must understand that someone who works at home rarely gets to speak to anyone unless this anyone is purposely looked for. When I go out for a cup of java, I get to exchange a few words with the gal or guy who makes it for me. When I don’t, chances are that the first few words I utter come out in the evening when Rich returns from work.

I was soon cured of that though; my nose has been dripping all day and I feel that creepy, icy sensation taking hold of me even as I lie on the sofa with a hot water bottle, two cashmere blankets, a pashmina and an alpaca cardie for company. All the better it is happening now and not at Crimbo or not next week; I am going to Nottingham for work with a poetess on Monday.

Chores

2010-01-12T17:20:00.000Z

I just returned from next door, negotiating the outside step, the car (returned from the garage, yes), the snow, the front door and my leaping dogs. I took a washing to Cliff so that by the time the technician will show up on Friday, the washer will not be buried under a ton of dirty rags.

To think that my grandma used to do this weekly, but down to a river, while her own mum, bizarrely, had staff doing this and all other chores really is odd. Not being able to stick a washing in when I want to is one of the most annoying things that could ever happen to someone of my generation (together with, perhaps, a flat mobile battery or a lack of internet access). How times have changed and how quickly, too.

Shit Magnet

2010-01-11T17:53:00.003Z

I am under the very distinct impression that somewhere along the line of life I became a Shit Magnet. Have you ever heard of them, the Shit Magnets? They are not objects, but people. They lead pretty uneventful little lives were it not for their innate ability to attract shit from all places without even trying.

If I cast my mind back, I can see plentiful signals that make me a Shit Magnet. The opportunistic friends, the crass relatives, the moronic classmates. But these are the obvious things, especially when they come, not just in pairs, but in multitudes, more and more as time goes by.

The not-so-obvious signifiers of my standing as a Shit Magnet, and a royal one at that, are the monthly extras which normal people usually call unforeseen expenses or the unexpected. Well in my case the unexpected is starting to become the expected; the unforeseen is becoming the foreseen; the oxymoronic sure-as-hell surprise factor. What will it be next month? Will it be the roof, the toilet, the shower, the dryer? Or will be the toaster, the fridge, the handle of my bag, the heel of my shoe, the wisdom tooth? Will it be all of these or any combo thereof?

I started the new year at the A&E; now I have a broken washing machine and a car that needs immediate attention. In fact, I am taking it to the doc tomorrow morning as the supposedly successful diagnostics that were run today only cost me £ 30 and yielded a non-result. Of course, God forbid that I could get away with anything less than a mortgage payment when something needs attention around these parts! Mind you, not that I’ve got real reasons to complain, even in passing, about my car, as the only money I’ve thrown at it over the years have been MOTs and tyres. But shit happens, doesn’t it? It sure does and to some people it happens more often, and in greater quantities, than to others. Now if only I could wash my clothes, it wouldn’t stink this badly.

Sunday Best

2010-01-10T19:32:00.001Z

I live in a cold, drafty old house. Not a period home, let’s be clear, just an old one. Loft and wall insulation haven’t made one bit of difference. When it gets warm in the summer, it stays so even at night (+28C last June for example) and when it gets cold in winter... well... good luck in crashing above +18C. The heating has been on continuously for the past eight weeks, and not once has the temperature risen above +20C. Today I stayed in bed, the only pleasant place to be, especially if complemented by a hot water bottle and entertained by a stack of things to read.

It’s a new week tomorrow and, at least for me, the first working day of the new year. I cannot even tell whether I am looking forward to it or not; all I know is that there is no hiding any longer. My new big project will be underway for real. And it feels worrying but oh so fab too.

The Next Tree or Au Revoir Mes Amis - Part III

2010-01-09T23:00:00.003Z

I spent the day taking my decorations down and thinking about them. As I got to the Christmas tree, still perfect and beautiful as the day I put it up, I realised I was very nearly yanking off the baubles, disregarding their precious each-in-its-own-box mouth-blown glass quality. Not long ago, a friend of mine remarked that my tree looked as good as one of those in John Lewis.

I don’t exactly regard John Lewis as the height of sophistication, at Christmas or at any other time, but I understood she meant it as a compliment and so I thanked her. But the truth is, a department store-like Christmas tree, all visually appealing in its colour-coordinated perfection, is a soulless tree. I don’t know about you but when I trail the city before the big day, I never wish to take home the tallest tree, the one ablaze with white lights in the main square, appealing as it is; oh no, it’s always the one pushed right in front of the bay window and decorated with all sorts of mismatched things and lit up with bulbs big and small and in all colours that catches my eye.

Perhaps this is down to a subconscious reaction to magazine spreads (you know the sort, Period Living, Ideal Home, the mid-market stuff) where everything, including people, look like computer-generated cardboard cut-outs moved around in the pic until everything looks just damn so. Thus it was that today I resolved not to go the clean way next December, but the colourful, mismatched one, like the trees I used to make as a child and which included glass decorations from the 1950s, clay ones from school, resin ones from The Disney Store and any odd bits of ribbon that found themselves in the house. And maybe next time I will also bake some treats to go on the branches, though I will have to dog-proof them in some way.

I won’t need to purchase a truckload of new things either. See these?

They come out to play every year, as I place them in vases and marble containers around the house. Somehow, I’ve already managed to collect more than enough for another tree (and in fact, three years ago, I had two) which, really, already speaks for itself.

Near-Back To Reality

2010-01-08T19:00:00.003Z

This morning I dispatched my parents to the airport then zipped around the countryside to enjoy the very low sun, the very blue sky, the very white land glistening as far as the eye could see and the very invigorating -15C. Yes, much could be said about low temperatures and their ability to snap us back into brisk action, if only to speed up on the way to the newsagent. It reminded me of how fantastic it felt to land in Chicago after a nine-hour flight and to hit the sidewalks (and the Nieman Marcus sale, later) at -25C. If only we had a proper winter like this one all the time instead of that miserable, lukewarm piss from above that normally afflicts us all year round...

I returned home in good spirits (thank you February Vogue, thank you Starbee) if only ever so slightly deflated. Rick is in London for work, mum and dad are back at their own digs, William and Victoria have spent the day sleeping (or pretending to; either way, they haven’t moved) and the best I could do was wielding cleaning products and the Dyson for a good three hours. I have often asked myself why my house turns into a dust-infested shithole as soon as the new year is out of its nappies. I vacuumed dust bunnies as big as my head today; you would think it’s the first time the Dyson is out to play since mid-December but, oh no, I last used it yesterday morning. And the same applies to the bathroom; it has now had a damn good scrub and has been dripping in bleach for the past hour. It should be safe to eat off its floor if I were so insanely inclined.

I have decided to take the weekend off, which is an odd thing to say, not simply because weekends are usually off-times, but because I haven’t been on for... well... a month. Maybe more. But the disgusting truth is, I cannot face the usual music of writing, editing, creating, writing again, creating some more. Quite frankly, I’d quite happily hop on a plane and spend some time in even colder climates if I could. Nothing like truly polar temperatures to clear one’s own mind I am telling you.

Snowy Bliss - Part II

2010-01-07T18:46:00.005Z

I’ve rarely seen Manchester looking this blue and I have certainly never seen it looking this bright and blue. I love the place deeply at the worst of times but today it was something else.

Snowy Bliss

2010-01-06T18:35:00.006Z

Oh miracle weather! Oh gift of the Three Wise Men! The best Epiphany ever, from the Alderley Edge Forest to Prestbury.

Five Twenty-Ten At Seven, Eight and Eleven-Ten

2010-01-05T13:49:00.003Z

I am a genius. Why don't I take pics like these more often? Why don't I try and point the camera at the very same thing every day at the same hour for a year and see what I record? When I went to bed last night, spiky flurries were dancing by the streetlamps; this morning they had turned themselves into a reasonably thick blanket strewn upon the garden. It almost reminded me of years and years ago, when snow wasn't a freak occurrence but an expected January guest; when there was no talk of global warming but just of winter.

Still, although four feet would be better than four inches, four inches are infinitely better than zero. William walked around as if on booby-trapped eggshells, while Victoria zoomed off into an impalpable white cloud of nothingness. Oh the beauty of the violet hour early this morning! The magic of the sounds wafting from afar! I hope that Rick took his own set of pics when he left for work earlier still; but for now, mine will have to do.

Twinkle Things

2010-01-04T17:42:00.001Z

I’ve been perusing a couple of blogs and just about everyone seems to be writing about the same sentiment insofar as decorations and twinkly lights are concerned: I like them, but now want to get rid of them.

Let me be clear on one point now: you will never hear me say that I cannot stand my decorations a second past the Epiphany. If I rush to put them away by the end of January’s first full week is only down to a pressing need for order and the necessity to reclaim the hole that is my house where space is more than at a premium. The decorations themselves make me happy and every time I enter the lounge after I’ve taken the tree down, and it’s all tidy and dark, I feel sad, almost as if someone had died. Then I start clinging on to stuff such as The Polar Express or A Christmas Carol or the last bit of the Christmas pudding or the Christmas sticker album I bought myself in November. Seems like a lifetime ago. No, two.

Anyway, I am blabbing. The whole point is, I don’t want to plunge my living quarters into darkness for the next eleven months. Who says that fairy lights are only good for navity sets and the tree? Or for shops and teenagers’ bedrooms? I will remove the pinecone trees that my dad made, and which give this soft, flattering glow to everything, but I am on an anti-dreary mission and I think that Valentine’s (and my wedding anniversary, which tags to it nicely) is an excuse as good as any other.

Livin' La Vida Loca

2010-01-03T18:38:00.002Z

This is it. This is the life. This morning I got ready, went out with my parents for a full-on brekkie at Starbee and then went for a walk in a local park and across to a vintage fair. And this is the life, I repeat it.

Not one bloody care in the world, not one thought of damn-and-blasted food shopping, nor one spared for everyday minutie and the mundane. If only it were like this all the time...! I already dread next week, when I will be uncerimoniously returned to my own poor devices and when I will necessarily need to re-wind life back to the beginning of December. Oh my. Spare me.

As You May Mean To Go On

2010-01-02T17:48:00.004Z

I went out with dad and Rich for a coffee and a spin around Waterstone’s today and I enjoyed a moment of quiet contemplation as I observed the pretty bubbles on the surface of my latte laced with caramel. See here?

It reminded me of Danny Gregory of The Creative License. I know, I know, can I actually write one month without mentioning that man? I suppose I can. Or I could if his book hadn’t inspired me so much. And as you can see, it is the gift that keeps on giving (except it wasn’t a gift; I just couldn’t think of another cliché I could have used and I really wanted to use one this time). Today it gifted me some contemplation as I thought that, for all the hundreds of pics I have of my coffee (I snap at it every time I have it, I kid you not), I’ve actually never drawn it myself.

As my keyword for this year is CREATE, I think I should start creating from things that are neither new nor unexpected but which I expect to be the same time after time. Because, guess what, nothing is exactly the same time after time. Get drawing and you’ll see what I mean. And thanks again to The Creative License. Last plug for Danny I promise. Last plug. Last, last, last plug. Until the next one.

One Twenty-Ten At Three And Ten

2010-01-01T11:46:00.001Z

When I went to bed at three, the biggest, brightest moon I’ve ever seen was shining high up in the sky, casting her preternatural silver light on all things. My garden, which has recently been described by a friend as Tim Burton-esque, which can equally be seen as either a compliment or an underhand insult, looked positively magical, its hard edges smoothed into delicate embellishments where fairies and winged unicorns frolic. I stood transfixed at the window for ages and thought of what photographers refer to as The Magic Hour, which is sunset or thereabouts, when everything and everyone looks good under the delicate light. Well, I wish I could have captured my magic hour and my magic light.

In the morning, when I woke up with a jolt as I felt I had overslept and had to return to hospital for extra antibiotics they didn’t give us at night, I found a different scene and one that the iPhone’s camera always struggles to capture. It was silver and icy, every strand of old grass coated in glittery icing sugar. Oh the beauty and joy of starting the first morning of the first day of the year in crisp cold air! The day remained quiet and monopolised by Monopoly but I didn’t mind one bit.

One Twenty-Ten At One

2010-01-01T04:50:00.001Z

The first pic I took last year was one of my dogs which is not at all unsurprising. They, especially William, are excellent camera fodder and considering how much they like to hang around, it is only natural that I snap them more often than I care to admit. But I wasn’t around my dogs when I rang in the new year today. Oh no, I was at a local A&E with Rick and my mum, who suffers from one ghastly kidney stone.

This was the pretty depressing view from where I was sitting, she back on her feet, me back on my bottom, trying taxi company upon taxi company, begging them to come and pick us up. One hour later we stumbled through the front door, finally at home. It’s strange to report on this little incident because I felt somewhat giddy when it was happening, which is, you will agree, beyond odd. I was eavesdropping on the next cubicle where a woman was answering a doctor’s question about her malaise. Have you fainted? No. Have you eaten too much? No. Have you had anything to drink like coffee or anything alcoholic? No. Have you fallen over? No. Did you develop a fever? No. Have you felt off sometimes today? No. Have you passed water as normal? Yes. Have you been able to move around? Yes.

On and on and on it went, so much so that I slowly but surely started imagining things. How funny would it be if I were to pull that curtain back and go: ‘And why the hell did you call an ambulance on new year’s eve?’. Or: ‘What the hell is wrong with you woman?! Who wants to be in hospital on new year’s eve?’. It all got more and more absurd, as I thought about doing a little dance to entertain my sick mother finishing off with a flourish that would see me toppling backwards through the curtain and into the next cubicle, to the shock of all men in blue.

I very nearly sent her wee sample off to a flying start as I reached the pedal of the bin which begged to be depressed, me seemingly unaware that I had put the container on its lid only a second before. But I am sharp and I caught it just in time. Then I started perusing my face and thanked my lucky stars I still had make up on when we had sat down for Monopoly. Yes, Monopoly, which I was winning by a mile until my mum threw her spanner in my works. Honestly people, you can’t make this stuff up. Happy new year.

Bam-Bang-Ba-Ra-Bang!

2010-01-01T01:00:00.000Z

The Year In Non-Review

2009-12-31T15:08:00.005Z

I've spent the last half hour browsing through this year's pics, trying to fish out at least one shot that I particularly like or that perhaps encapsulates emotions I've felt throughout the months. This sounds like one heck of a simple exercise, but I can assure you it's only deceptively so. The more I looked and the less I found what I was seeking, until I stumbled upon dead leaves and flowers, both taken on a run-of-the-mill autumn day a few weeks back. My 2009 has been like this:

one hell of a steep staircase taking me nowhere. Distinctively nowhere. I conclude the year broken and tired, not one inch closer to anything I had worked (and planned) to reach, too exhausted even to be saddened by it all. I don't even care any longer.

I hope that my 2010 will be like this:

in technicolour and bright and happy, building on what has happened this past month and living in the present. I am looking forward to tomorrow like I've never looked forward to a new year before. And from then on, it's the new red diary and a change of tune. Have a good night and thank you for reading, today and any other day.

Trickles Of The Year

2009-12-30T15:25:00.006Z

I love a still, foggy landscape. Have I said it already, that I love the fog? I remember being caught in it many months back, but that wasn't the type of fog I am thinking about right now, this fog right here:

I shot that in Knutsford, down at The Moor, where the paths were slabs of ice and the water was a bigger slab upon which seagulls pattered slowly and carefully and from which they took flight at the sight of us, just in case we had brought something to eat.

I spent the last few days doing pretty much nothing, again as I reported on Christmas Day. Playing games, going out for walks, hopping from place to place without real aim, nor real reason to go there seems like a great way to while away the days when Christmas winds itself down and the New Year starts rearing its head. In fact, there is something that is making me ridiculously happy and excited: the prospect of cracking open my brand new red Moleskine diary come Friday and to turn dreams into reality. I know that much introspection and pondering will take place over the next twenty-four hours: for some reasons that is what the last day of every year inspires me to do, but then it will be all systems go and hopefully onwards and very much upwards. To infinity and beyond. And to hell with 2009.

Hazy

2009-12-25T16:18:00.003Z

It's been a misty, foggy Christmas Day, spent opening a couple of presents, eating a little bit at lunchtime, finally tucking into the cheesecake that I bought two days ago and generally doing nothing. Like... nothing at all. Suits me fine. Merry Christmas dear reader and thanks for visiting and for all of your emails throughout 2009.