I am not a very adventurous traveller. Despite the stamps in my passports, indicating that I’ve been to quite a few far-flung countries, I am always cautious, terrified of dodgy transport, impassable roads, diseases, bugs, and every kind of peril you can name. My husband will never let me forget how we travelled around most […]
My three-and-a-half-year-old son is going through a really exhausting, fiesty, “f*ck you” phase, which has been dragging on for months. He wakes up, usually in a terrible temper, and starts shouting NO at anything we suggest. We have to be on alert for biting, kicking and hair-pulling. He’s wise to us bribing him, and […]
If you enjoy strange, melancholy dreamlike landscapes, derelict spaces and are fascinated by nuclear power stations, you’ve got to visit Dungeness*. I’d always known about it in the back of my mind, but had never made it over to this stretch of coastline, which is a stone’s throw from Rye and situated on the Kentish […]
I must have visited Bristol about 10 times in my life and the impressions that I get so far are that it’s a rich, eclectic and sprawling city filled with giddying hills and gasp-worthy views, crap public transport and mind-boggling traffic, excellent bakeries (Hart’s, Baked etc) and bold, beautiful graffiti murals splashed across every available […]
Bergamot lemons. Who knew about these? I certainly didn’t. I honestly thought there was probably only one kind of lemon, the usual kind that I squeeze on everything. To be honest I don’t spend much time thinking about lemons. Well. There are actually different types of lemon lurking out there, quite independently of me knowing […]
I absolutely loathe wasting food. I’d rather shoehorn an extra slab of toast into my mouth, or someone else’s mouth, than see it go in the bin. The idea of discarding anything edible is like a stab to the heart. I’ll often eat pieces of my kids’ discarded fish fingers that have dropped onto the […]
I hadn’t been to Marseille for over 12 years. I have family there, but for one reason or another our orbits haven’t aligned for a long time. In mid-January, I finally went down for a 48-hour visit to see my aunt and cousins. The Marseille I remember from my summers there as a child was […]
And now it’s 2018. Let’s see how this year goes, shall we? Perhaps unicorns and rainbows will shower down upon us all? That is all I have to say on the matter. Anyway, in matters of grave importance, I now have an obsession with pasta and cauliflower in a dish together. That doesn’t sound very […]
Food banks shouldn’t exist in this affluent country. But they have done since 2004, after years of bonkers governmental austerity policies, recession fallout and wage freezes. Not to mention the myriad of administrative complications people experience when waiting six weeks for their Universal Credit benefits to kick in. There are so many people in desperate […]
Aha there Sweden. Home of the cardamom bun. There is no nobler or more exciting afternoon treat in my greedy mind’s eye. Anyone who knows me well will have been subjected to my endless droning on regarding these noble, sticky spiced pastries. Cinnamon buns, you’re perfectly nice and all that, but take a hike. Cardamom […]
Toast & Butter 