T-minus 18 days

Until I turn 30. And in a not-so-promising sign we have gone from this....

To this.....

One thing Leeds to another

FINALLY. Open toed shoe weather has arrived in London and it is delightful. There aren't many pro's to being fundamentally unemployed (I could probably count them on two fingers...) but afternoons on the sofa, in the sunshine, with a bowl of ripe passionfruits would absolutely be one of them. (I would say the only one but given that I'm staring at an imminent and ongoing lack of career I'd like to hold out for the possibility of even one more tick in the pro column, however tenuous.)

Some daughters do 'ave 'em

My Mum has a favourite early memory of she and I. We’re in the chemist, Mum at the counter, me in the pram and we’re chatting amiably away before she paused and realised, “We’re friends, you and I.” Being 18 months old at the time I don’t remember the occasion but the older I get the more grateful I am to call someone as fabulous as P my Mum, and yes, absolutely still my friend.

P is The Best and her go get ‘em/fuck 'em/I-we-you can do this attitude - at once elegant, ballsy and brilliant - is a constant source of inspiration to me as I’ve navigated my way from highly strung child to awkward teenager to at-times-uncertain adult (I think at nearly 30 I do now sadly have to concede I am unavoidably a grown up…)

She tells me I’m fabulous, clever, brave and beautiful. She also tells me when I’m being pathetic, ridiculous, unhinged and unhelpful. The perfect execution of good mother and friend, pulled off as only she could.

My mum, aged 4 (and on the right) in the surf with my Nan and aunt.
We look identical at this age.

I love my Mum. I love her bravery, her style, her classiness, her sense of adventure, her frivolity and love of laughter, her care, her thoughtfulness and her fabulous collection of jewels and bags and scarves. And the list goes on.

I know she knows all this but if you can’t publicly adore your mother on Mother’s Day then when else can you?

Thank you Mumma – for showing me how it’s done and for the ongoing conversation. Happy Mother’s Day.

A looooong weekend

So I survived nannying - and so did the children. For a long weekend at the beginning of Spring I don't think any of us appreciated the pouring rain, the gale force winds or the hail but god has mercy - and these days it's called Nintendo.

By the time I got home on Monday afternoon it was all I could do to roll cadaverously off the sofa (freshly built) to eat the delicious meal LB had cooked for me, a mouth-watering Thai beef salad no less. It marked the end of an interesting couple of days, culinarily speaking. The long weekend was all about toasted sandwiches, burritos and packet cake mixes... an insulting low after Friday's personal triumph in the kitchen.

Cake aside, yes I really did bake one, I was mindlessly flicking through Bill Granger's Sydney Food cook book when I struck upon a ricotta and tomato tart and, perhaps deluded after all the Masterchef that LB has been making me watch lately, decided that making puff pastry from scratch couldn't be that hard...

And it wasn't.

Granted it was messy and absolutely it was more cal than low but honestly, there was puff to my pastry AND, more importantlyslashsurprisingly, it was delicious. My eyes were like saucers at the shock and even now I catch myself saying quietly to no-one in particular, "I made puff pastry. From scratch. And it was delicious." Or rather... "And it was delicious??" with that slightly raised intonation that suggests shock and utter disbelief. So to make packet mix brownies 12 hours later was a rather depressing come down as you might imagine, irrespective of their compelling edibility (ed: is that even a word?). My new theory is, if you're going to O.D. on calories, you have to at least earn the right to do so by making the bloody thing yourself. This theory obviously applies to everything except Snickers bars.

Not much else happened over the weekend and yesterday I was at the gallery before heading to the bar. A long day by anyone's definition but I didn't really mind. LB told me I should get a 9 to 5 job and I told him it wasn't the 9 to 5 I objected to so much as the Monday to Friday. Give me crap wages and long shifts any day as long as I can have the mornings to myself to sit on the sofa and write.

Coming home from the bar around 12.30, I was walking down the street when I spotted a fox, tearing through the rubbish bags in search of food. I stopped and tried to take a photo of him and as I did he stopped at looked at me, as if to say, rather indignantly, do you mind? But my crap camera failed to catch him in the darkness and so all I ended up with was this:

Best not give up any one of my day jobs just yet...