Hello! I don’t write on this blog anymore – if you’d like to read something more up-to-date, I’ve started publishing posts on Substack, still under the name Toast & Butter. Please do come and join me there!
How’s everybody doing? My experience of UK Lockdown Life is bog standard, I suppose – this past year has been a huge fuggin’ ball of relentlessness. NOBODY in this house has been learning a new hobby / language / yoga poses. That whole idea can absolutely get nuked, it’s all about survival mode here. By […]
During this unhinged time, I’ve got to know some of my neighbours a bit better, and they are such a lovely bunch. In a few short weeks, there have been many kindnesses shown, in particular goods exchanged and loaned. One of my neighbours left two jolly parsnips on my doorstep, another brought round some home-grown […]
Dear Covid-19. Well, hello! Being an anxious sort, I had always imagined that a global pandemic would happen at some point soon, given how shockingly we treat the planet. But until something like this hits the fan in earnest, it’s hard to process the full reality of it. I fully believe that the author Emily […]
What kind of idiot doesn’t properly read an Airbnb listing before they book their holiday? Fools like us. We had chosen what we considered to be a ‘characterful’ Airbnb in Porto for the first leg of our two week trip to Portugal at Easter, with our two rascal children in tow. We found somewhere central […]
I have a massive predilection for old fashioned Kentish ice cream parlours with their sweeps of retro chrome and mirrored tiling. It doesn’t matter at all that it’s February and I can’t feel my hands, there’s nothing like a strong cup of tea and a marshmallow-y vanilla oyster (Mr Whippy ice cream wafer sandwich) consumed […]
All my adult life I’ve been obsessed with going to Liverpool. No idea why, exactly. I never liked the Beatles, I have fuck-all interest in football and I have zero links with the area. Maybe it’s because I’m a huge fan of Northern cities, and it felt odd to have never been to Liverpool, despite […]
When we’re all punching each other for the last croissant or getting into headlocks over the final packet of Camenbert after the supposed 2019 Brexit deadline of March 29th, doing a daytrip to Paris will seem like a faraway folly. As queues at customs and border control snake out of the Eurostar terminal at St […]
“I’ve brought you something,” said my friend Charlotte in an ominous tone, producing something blurry in a tiny Tupperware box from her bag. We were in a cafe near Waterloo and my kids were running rings around the table. She handed over something that, when I opened the lid, looked like frogspawn without the tiny […]
Toast & Butter 