For a while now I've been wanting to get back into the garden! I miss spending hours pottering about, languidly watering plants and admiring them and their growth spurts. This desire has been somewhat stilted by living on the first floor and not having my own garden. We do, however, have a tiny bit of balcony space outside the back door. And after watching everyone else's flower boxes flourish throughout the summer months, I thought that as it's now autumn it would be a great time to get planting! To be honest I can't remember exactly how you're supposed to assemble the balls. I can't even remember the name, so after a brief and unsurprisingly unsuccessful effort on The Google I re-hydrated the moss and used a combination of herb-plugs, moss and potting soil... Taa-daa! Having managed a few layers I opted for a centre-piece instead of a full ball, featuring fresh basil, parsley, chives, thyme and rosemary! Even the strawberries tha...

Over the Christmas period we discovered that The Boyfriend, DC is actually really lactose intolerant, and not in a it's-currently-trendy-to-be-allergic-to-something way, he writhes in agony for at least 24 hours after ingesting dairy! So my challenge has been to find lactose replacements (while secretly snacking on the odd chocolate that falls my way when he's not looking!) that are both appetising and lactose free, which is not as simple as it should be! Last weekend I was asked to bring dessert, so went off to scour the shelves of M&S... DC had said that I could get two options, fruit for him and something creamy for the rest of us. But, for me, this is just unfair. If I couldn't eat something and everyone else could, I really wouldn't want them to be having that in front of me! After 20 minutes scouring the shelves, I hit on jelly, albeit with fruit in it, and sorbet, finished with a sprinkling of blueberries. About 15 min into this search it finally hit me t...

Give them two or four little hours… Well Dinah Washington , I’ve just bought a pair of heels and am yet to wear them for either two OR four hours. That may be because they’re slightly too small (although a 6)… I’m optimistic that they’ll stretch soon, hence have been wearing them on a daily basis since the beginning of the week in the hope that soon, ideally by the time I go for dinner this evening, they’ll be perfect (read: my toes won’t be numb after 30 minutes.) They look even better in real life! In the same purchase I acquired a pair of snakeskin pumps. Now my tendency is to wear flats, but I’m a lady and so love a pair of pretty heels! So how could I resist a metallic bronze pair, on sale! They were calling out to me, they needed a home, it would have been cruel to leave them on the website. So I housed them, both. The flats will get me to and from the party, the heels are to be worn while everyone can remember their shiny beauty (at the beginning of the night)! ...

Okay, so I'm a little late to this party, but as they say, better late than never. I'm kinda 'old school' I like my protein in meat form, ideally a steak cooked on the rare side of medium-rare (in particular, one from Roxie's , who do a most fantastic 250g fillet steak, for a very reasonable £14.45...) So to eat quinoa, pronounced 'keen-wa', just feels a bit odd!  A tantalising steak from Roxie's, who wouldn't want one? However, I'm told that great things can be done with it (quinoa, not steak). A particularly loved and often visited website in our office, is that of nutritional life-stylist, Madeleine Shaw (and yet this is still the first time I'm eating quinoa!) I've made her sweet-potato bread before (add rosemary and extra baking powder and it's delish!) Reasonably tasty, but probably vegetarian! But I digress! Today I have had my first bowl of M&S's super green soup with quinoa and some other ingredients (b...