Because NO ONE likes Christmas pudding. Today, I am sharing an old family recipe* for chocolate truffle torte. This is a fine little pudding to make for any occasion – it is at heart just chocolate and cream, so everyone likes it. My Mum always made this in a big springform cake tin, which looks […]
Life
Pretty much everything else.
Blogmas Day 13 – Magic
It occurs to me that a lot of this blog is concerned with magic. The magic of baking, of writing, and of love. Let’s take baking. Baking is magic. You take this selection of uninspiring ingredients (the curdled excretions of a cow! A chicken’s period! Some ground up grass!) and you combine it in the […]
Blogmas Day 10 – How To Erase A Hangover With Makeup
I am so sorry, I appear to have fallen behind with Blogmas. I skipped Friday to go to Brighton and get drunk with some teachers on the last day of term, and then on Saturday I couldn’t move because no one drinks like teachers on the last day of term. They make George Best look […]
Blogmas Day 9 – Three Irritating Questions You’ll Be Asked At Christmas Parties
Christmas is a time of socialising, which is both good and bad. Boozy night down the pub with beloved old friends you haven’t seen for a year? Good! Cheeky after work prosecco with your besties just because it’s Christmas? Good! Pretending you’re going Christmas shopping with your Dad but bunking off and going down the […]
Blogmas Day 8 – What’s In My Bag?
You see what’s in my bags all the time on blogs and youtube but I find them endlessly fascinating. My favourite thing about Amsterdam is that no one has curtains in their front rooms so you can see right into their living rooms whenever you want. Seriously. I like that more than pancakes, €5 Prosecco and […]
Blogmas Day 4 – My Favourite Ever Bookshops (Consumerism Isn’t All Bad)
I hang out mainly with people who do a lot of activism and/or yoga, so consumerism gets a bad rap round our way. “Who needs possessions anyway?” my friends will say, knitting themselves jumpers out of yak milk. “Money’s not what’s important in life. The only things that truly bring happiness are love, and a […]
Blogmas Day 2 – Winter Cycling Tips
Around this time of year, the cycle commute I normally feel so smug about starts to really bite me in the ass. Ten miles a day sounds impressive, but on a balmy summer evening, it’s a real piece of piss if I’m honest with you. In winter though, all that changes, and the shortest of […]
Blogmas Day 1 – The Advent-ure So Far
Four years ago today, I started this blog. Here is my first post. I was so unhappy. In 2011 I’d been flailing about, trying to be a writer, and totally failing to write anything for three years. Starting and abandoning novels, over and over again. Sitting down at my laptop, and writing a sentence, and […]
Conditions Under Which I Will Happily Work For Free – an Exhaustive List
If you want to book a poet to perform at your night, you need to pay them from £50 for a newer, local poet, up to several hundred for an established name. There comes a point where poetry isn’t just a quirky hobby, it’s a job, and jobs need payment. You know this, though. Of […]
Queen of the Biscuits – on totally overthinking your food choices
I work in the kind of office where, at 11am every day, someone will come over and offer you a cup of coffee and a biscuit. It’s very civilised. Because I am British, I have extremely strong opinions about biscuits (and all kinds of baked goods). Because also I am trying to lose weight, I […]