i went to bed between clean, pressed sheets tonight, despite the streaks of paint that have dried stubbornly on my thighs. I took a sleeping pill 'cos i am tired, but i didn't think i could sleep. In the dark i realised that the only voices i have spoken with today were my two young sons, on the phone, far away, and then when i think further, i realise that i didn't speak to anyone at all yesterday.

How did i get here? How did i get to this utterly fucking miserable place?

i don't want to do this anymore, and i don't know how to stop it.

cool summer eating

I keep making this gem of a supper dish, with or without a meat dish alongside. It has all the comfort of a slow cooked potato dauphinoise, but with no cream. Sliced potato, sage, feta and leeks, celeriac and another layer of potato. A cup of hot water is all the liquid needed, and a good foil hat to keep the steam in. The recipe is here.



My regular chicken marinade (warning: with added smut).



I found an old phone yesterday, with texts.

>it was not your cum< he wrote >it was mine. your cums are mine<

Sometimes i forget to come, just when i need to most.

strange lands

It isn't a plan, just a fancy; to lie in a meadow and kiss. For an hour or so, or maybe more.

I'm not cooking today. I don't cook for myself. I bought steak and marinated artichokes, tomatoes and olives. There is some lettuce somewhere in the fridge, and the last few drops from a special bottle of balsamic.

I'm in a little bubble all of my own. Sometimes it bounces, other times it falls.

picadillo

A mexican ragu (via Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat Book). Olives and raisins and all things nice. Try it as a refreshing change to a tomato-rich herby bolognese.

250g minced beef
250g minced pork
1 tablespoon wine or cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 finely chopped onion
1 finely chopped red pepper
1 or 2 fresh chillies
50g raisins
50g stoned green olives (pimento-stuffed for preference), finely chopped
250ml beef stock
135ml chopped tomatoes or a tube of tomato puree



Put the meats in a large bowl and season with the vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper, mixing well together. Leave to stand.



Heat the oil in a large pan and sweat the onion, garlic, red (or orange) pepper and chilli for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft and lightly browned.

Add the meat to the pan and cook hard until well browned all over.

Add the rest of the ingredients (and 50g flaked almonds, if you wish) and mix well. Bring to a very gentle simmer and cook, partly covered, for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if mixture is looking dry, but don't let it be too saucy.

Be sure to make enough that you have some to put aside for a day or so and gently reheat. Serve with whatever you fancy .. soft tortillas, guacamole, salsa, sour cream and grated cheese or rice, or potatoes or pasta or bread and butter; it is all good.



My boys pet me; patting my arm, my shoulder, my hair. Little hands (sometimes sticky) that reach out to touch me and remind me to adjust the expression on my face. They worry if i'm not smiling.

gratuitous cheese

A cauliflower cheese supper. It was tasty but had a potent effect on the children's bellies.

We ate outside for every meal today; a particular pleasure for me, as i won't need to scrape cherry jam off the carpet. I spent much of the morning snoozing under a tree while listening to misunderstood cricket scores, and this afternoon the boys and i lay limply on a rug in the hot sun. What's not to enjoy?

• Whenever someone claps i remember to look up, interested.
• I'm trying to concentrate on my book but the waiting batsmen are talking about someone's brother who kissed a girl once
• I feel inadequate. I haven't a clue who's winning. I shall read my book and eat biscotti
• It it is odd to spend sunday morning asleep in a meadow surrounded by strangers making random clapping and cheering noises
• isn't in the mood to focus on cricket balls
• dipped my biscotti in white chocolate. It has made them look bigger.
• fell into a rose bush. My arm is garish with red ribbon thorn trails and yellow antiseptic blusher.
• is making chocolate hazelnut biscotti. Some of the sweet fingers didn't make it back into the oven for the second bake.
• is so lazy today; i can't be bothered moving the breakfast things of the table, so i just used a different table for supper.
• lamb and bacon kofte with cinnamon, poached in broth, finished with cream and egg yolks.
• a girl can go far in the kitchen with a powerful motor
• it only took three attempts but now my table is royally and rightly screwed
• won something!
• could go to the gym if she wanted to, but shan't. I shall cut the lawn instead, and keep an eye on next door's workmen #sociallyminded
• swept the winding stairs to her lonely office garret this morning - biscuits crumbs gone but couldn't shift the bat guano.
• could count the ways in which today hasn't worked, but hasn't enough toes and fingers
• has mango juice running up my arm
• we all cried at the supper table. I don't blame the pork chops or the asparagus.
• the children are redesigning their mummy on the mii wii
• strawberry mouth
• "you have a full basket" he observes, but i know he isn't referring to my shopping.
• oily bike chain replaced, biscotti crumbs in my coffee, taking care with a cheese sauce. An afternoon of little pleasures.
• stuck her tongue out at a small boy, who winked back
• my skirt felt uncomfortable, until i discovered a clothes peg in the waistband.
• has a golden halo (or perhaps just very clean hair?)

haste

His is a perfectly fine bed but for now i am knelt on the floor with my back pressed to the wall, one arm reaching out to the door frame, the other hand gripping the metal bedstead for an illusion of balance and this here, with our lips on each other, is perfectly fine too.

shades of sweetness

My very first HNT, almost exactly 3 years ago.

Happy 5th Halfnekkidness to Os xx

Today i was offered something that i have wished for for a long time. Something i had given up on.

Yet, perhaps, the time has passed. I'll sleep on it.

saturday night supper

It was late by the time we got around to eating, but the wait was pleasurable. Hands-free oven baked spanish risotto, with chorizo, king prawns, trout and chicken, roasted tomatoes, rosemary. I wasn't cooking .. but i was chief rice taster. I think it needs a few more minutes than the recipe suggests.

a week

I made these: Bittersweet Biscotti (or so i named them) with walnut, spice & white chocolate. They are gluten-free, which makes them a little crumbly but the chilli hit is slow and luscious in combination with the darkest, bitterest chocolate that i had in the cupboard.

The original recipe came from here, but i adjusted with a little less gluten-free flour, walnuts instead of almonds and a majority of dark 70% chocolate, with white chocolate chips for contrast.





Oh, and i also made this: Rick Stein's Fennel Sausages with lemony potatoes and bay. Delicious.

• rick stein's fennel sausages braised with lemony potatoes and bay leaves: every scrap eaten by small boys (they picked the parsley off).
• i just pinched my little finger in a pair of tongs. It looks like a red tooth bite under my nail
• this time last wk i almost killed my child with an ill-thought cashew cookie. I keep checking that he's still here in the room #anaphylaxis
• 100g of freeze dried strawberries is a significant pile.
• has a parcel
• if i accidently eat two identical Leonidas' chocolates, do they both count?
• made it to third base with the beast cross trainer. There'll be jelly thighs by teatime.
• Church bells are pealing merrily not far from my attic window. Wishing i wore a floral frock; at least i have a daisy on my knickers
• will put yesterday firmly in it's place and fill today with such things as vanilla, cream and sugary foibles.
• has stress hiccups
• is striking out of a comfort zone, with the help of leonidas
• small boy, so excited by the day's prospects, has fallen down the stairs. The other one cried in empathy. Joy, wednesday.
• smells of trifle, apparently.
• warm chicken, asparagus and green beans with tarragon mayo, capers and gherkins. Licky fingers.
• if a tomboy is a girl who likes to play with the boys, what do you call a boy who likes to play with girls? My kids are asking ..
• distracted, so have absconded back home for coffee and a second breakfast.
• celeriac and bay soup, made with the jellified apple & ham stock. A glass of sancerre on the side.
• Cricket box bonding
• Supper revisited, cold from picnic box. Apple sweet ham, minted pineapple with green chilli, asparagus and jerseys
• Convoy spirit; i want to toot my horn and have a saucy handle
• In a convoy of mercs and audis, heading west. No hangover; thank you, kindly sancerre
• chocolate with cardamom instead of a nap
• My first wii match, and i lost to a 9yo. Custard cream consolation
• has every reason to smile. Son kicking football about, Dad has had good news from C clinic (and i get to try wii fit tonight)
• T'was the honey roasted cashew & peanut cookie ... He had a crumb, just a tiny crumb
• He has started to make jokes about being poisoned by mummy, so i guess he is feeling better
• He had a second massive anaphalactic reaction about 20 minutes later, but luckily ambulance had arrived
• I had to stick huge epipen needle in boy's thigh while 3 small children looked on in wide eyed horror
• Boy out of danger
• In hospital with allergic child

apéritif

The room slowly darkens until i realise we are standing under the only lamp, a pool of glimmer on his chest and my hands, a blanket of gloom wrapping us in liberty, except i am not really standing but instead bent backwards, my head against the cupboard door and my hips tilted over the counter top and his thigh is solid against mine and i wonder whether our clothes might have fused with the saturated heat.

loose ends

The situation from two weeks has been finally closed. The small child concerned is not returning to this classroom. It seems that several similar incidents had occurred (not our school but previous classes and at home) all of which were quietly ignored - hopefully he will get the help that is needed.

I have an appointment to see an osteopath for my neck pain. Yeh. Only 30 days to wait. Not that i am complaining; the NHS saved my boy's life last week so i'm not going to bitch about a waiting list (but it will be good to be able to swing my neck again).

It was a busy weekend of baking. Two regular favourites, but with added edible holographic fairy dust; Candy Floss Cake and Double Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes. Try it.

Also a Hot Gammon (poached in apple juice) with Pineapple, Mint and Green Chilli Relish; i have been eating it for three days now, without hesitation. Finely chop a fresh pineapple, a fistful of fresh mint, half a green chilli and add the juice of a lime - leave for a few hours to ripen.







I'm listening to new music and it is doing good things to my head. I shan't tell you what my body is doing.

shattered

The Almost Deadly Peanut Butter, Honey Roasted Cashew with Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

Delicious, but regretful.

The boy is ok now, after an evening spent in Resus. It was a serious reaction - twice - and very scary, but the NHS were marvelous.

shuttered

I repeated my favourite Hot Chocolate Loaf, but this time i divided the batter between two standard loaf tins and avoided the cascading chocolate lava that usually escapes and puddles on the floor of my oven with this particular recipe.

2 loaves of heaven surely has to be better than just the one.

All the signs read well, so, having met and enjoyed each other's company, i began to ask deeper questions. One morning, during a pleasant walk beside the thin end of the Thames, i asked him how his first wife died.

"Painfully" he explained, "a tumour in her colon brought on from coeliacs disease".

"I'm coeliac" i said, and he took a physical step backwards and stuttered to a stop.