today I told Liam my deepest, darkest secret. the one that haunts me almost everyday.

and everything feels different now.

My friends are turning 30.

And having babies.

My feelings on these points can waiver. But they are ever present. Like a storm brewing on the horizon. An awesome, amazing, thundering storm which shivers the spine and brews cackling, ecstatic howls in my throat.

I'm having such a funny time of it.

Drifting, fluffy, hazy times. Oddly discontented and vivdly stressful dreams.

And yet it's no longer an annoyance. A hinderance to my days.

It feels like a call to arms. It's time I got on with things. I feel suffocated, trapped. At odds with myself. Why don't I bloddy well get on with doing the things I want to be doing? There is no point in waiting.

So, bit by bit my life comes together at last.

I spent yesterday writing an article. about science. it was terrifying. and just right.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to upload ebooks for a job. The problem is, I want them to be free, so the licensed aggregators who take a cut to get you in iBooks and Kindles really aren't going to work. suggestions welcome.

open road

When I am stressed, I dream of endless airports and crowded tube stops and stressful dead empty spaces. In many ways, quite literally, they are my worst nightmare.


And lately, more than ever, I need open road. Clean, fresh air. Empty sky and plenty of roam to roar and run.

Which I guess is why I've been hankering for a car.

We don't have one, and to be honest, in this town it's unnecessary expense and hassle - much as I'd like to pop to the country for a Sunday drive every now and again.

But now the urge is almost impossible to ignore. It keeps me up at night. I need to get out, I need to get out, I need to get out...

So, to pass the time I've been daydreaming about the car I will someday have. The one that will take me out into wild expanses and help me feel free.

Most days I am up for a bit of Grace Kelly glamour and antiquated sophistication and am almost settled on what is quite possibly the world's cutest car, the Nissan Figaro, which incidentally should only ever come in that retro hospital green with a white soft top. In case you were wondering.

Though, in my searching, I must admit there are many times I'd be seduced by the bad-boy-made-good charms of this humdinger, the Fiat Spider .

So much love. So little cash.

Someday little beans, someday I will wear a headscarf and drive you til your wheels bleed.

also, remind me to tell you about the time I made bread with cornmeal and apple cider to go with the best curried lentil soup you will ever eat.

It was one of my finest kitchen moments of all time. hands down.

the mother of invention

sometimes I get these cravings. To hear a certain song, to lay in the grass. Usually they are about food, but I'm trying to make it sound like they are normal, healthy urges.

Well, tonight I needed sweet. And not candy or fruit, but baked good. Gooey, squishy, melty goodness. And it needed chocolate.

But my cupboards are bare. Like seriously. The fridge has half a head of broccoli and about a thousand condiments and an old cheese my uncle brought over from Ireland (don't ask). It is sketchtown.

So, I needed all my kitchen skill to work this magic. And boy, have my years of experimenting paid off. At last, I have a useful talent!

I literally took a skillet, lobbed in the dregs of a jar of peanut butter to melt on low, mixed in the crumbly ends of the brown sugar and waited for it to melt too.

Then added a dash of milk (trying to save enough for tomorrow's cereal) and the last squeeze of vanilla, plus a couple of fistfuls of flour, a big shake of baking soda and a pinch of salt.

Mixed it together on the stovetop until it was like wet cookie dough, then put it in the oven for 10 minutes to crisp.

Tasted the fork I'd used for stirring (the kitchen utensils are all dirty, so sue me) and realised it wasn't sweet enough, just tasted like dough - so while it baked, I made impromptu icing.

Scrapped the remaining butter wads of the paper wrapper, melted it in the microwave, added some cocoa powder, the last of the milk (guess tomorrow is stale toast now) and some icing sugar which has been lurking in the back of the cupboard since my mother bought it Chrismas 2009

... and voila! Creamy peanutbutter blondie with chocolate drizzle sauce, to be eaten hot, straight from the pan. honestly, I'd offer you some but it's gone already. Just too perfect.

I am a god of small things. well, the sorts of things that come with utensils anyway. I'm still working on the rest.