I pity the fool who wears a tight belt: degustating at Sketch

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blackberries with blackberry sorbet & blackberry macaroon; funky art deco; Mr Thilbault's garden vegetables with pea soup & chorizo ice cream

Saturday evening saw me skadoodling down Oxford Street in brand new 6-inch platform sandals, a silk floral-printed bubble dress (my man believes that the bubble is inarguably the most unflattering style to have ever befallen womankind) pinched at the waist with a faux-croc Karen Millen belt and my prized baby Mulberry clutch.

This is me stupendously dressed up, an event which occurs annually at best, and testament to the fact that girls dress up not to impress you boys, but to razzle-dazzle other girls, because I’m enroute to a dinner date with my gal pal, and believe me when I say I have never, nor will I ever teetered my way down Oxford Street in 6-inch heels for any man (ok, except George Clooney maybe).

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losing my virginity to the blueberry muffin

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low fat blueberry muffins

There’s this person in my kitchen. She looks a little like me, a tornado of a midget whizzing around, pouring, clanking, mixing, wiping ~ generally making an atomic-flour-bomb of a mess. I think she’s baking, which is simply a bizarre concept for me to grasp because she looks like me, but I don’t bake. I just do not bake.

And there are  good reasons why I don’t bake, the main one being that I have trouble with measurements. I don’t own a measuring cup, measuring spoons, kitchen scales or any other tool of a self-respecting baker (including the obligatory cake tin, muffin tray and mixing bowl). My attitude towards measurements is nonchalant at best and I’m a true believer that a ‘pinch’, a ‘dab’ and a ‘splash’ are completely acceptable measurements for the perfect amount of spice/sauce/anything.  

So while she looks curiously like my doppelgänger, I’m still sure she isn’t me because damn if I’m ever going to be caught using measuring spoons.

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friendship and noodles: i’m no longer alone

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chi noodle laska and chicken satay

Alone. You know that feeling? When it’s just you in a vacuum that engulfs space and time? Ok, maybe just space, the clock is still illuminated on the bottom right hand corner of my screen, staring at me (didn’t these things used to blink?) for what seems like definitely longer than a minute, and then it ticks over, so we know time is still there. Wait, so there’s a screen. Ok so it’s just me and my laptop, alone.

The laptop sporadically hums, I’d like to think that it’s thinking, but I don’t know for sure, cos I haven’t asked it to do anything, I’m just looking at it, deep in my own writer’s block. But at least the hum tells me I’m not alone, and comforts me in the knowledge that out here, in my office in Central London, if something should happen, at least someone thing will hear me scream squeal profanities.

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nightmares, dreamscapes and that SPICY chorizo

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penne arabiata with spicy chorizo & sundried tomato

I was recently reading a forum about the everyday things that happen in movies that just do. not. happen in real life. Like having untouched eye make-up after an all night session of bosom-heaving crockery-flinging sex, for example. And having kept your bra on that whole time.  Movies are movies and believe me when I say eye make-up smudges if you so much as flutter your lashes at the man of your dreams and as for the bra, well shit you gotta get that off because you don’t want him to see you wearing a bra from Target, do you?

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sleeping and eating, the virtues of (sunday) living

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coffee at The Breakfast Club; breakfast burrito at The Breakfast Club; latte at Flat White

I’m a firm believer that there are few things in life finer than waking up to my own bodyclock (and not the worker ant up-at-7am-without-an-alarm bodyclock ~ I really need to do something about that! ~ but the one that lets me sleep til at least 11am) and then falling back asleep again because guess what? There is nothing I need to get up for today! If you’ve never tried the Second Sleep, I strongly recommend it. It leaves you well rested and revitalised, ready to take on the world – that is, until nap time three hours later.

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tasty morsels of London: when to wear your expandable pants

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sizzling wagyu beef on hot rocks with champagne teriyake from Cocoon; chocolate walnut tart; pimms

I think there is a chance (a chance?) that I have an imbalance of something in my brain, because nothing else would explain my ridiculous childlike excitement as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds this morning and I woke up realising that today is Christmas Day is my birthday I win lotto we go to Vegas I get a puppy we go to the Taste of London Festival. Are you as excited as I am? You’re not? It’s ok, I know a puppy would have totally rawked, but food is a worthy consolation.

The day actually had the potential to go pear-shaped, what with the spanktastic top I bought last week turning out to not be as spanktastic as I had originally thought, and the fact that I (who has never once been tardy – retarded yes, tardy no) thought we were running late so I made my boyfriend run to the event with me (closed my eyes, followed the fragrance of yummy). But we arrived (early, as usual, thanks to the pre-eating jog) and so the Eating began.

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