Since August, life in the Poringe has fallen apart in a painful but dignified kind of way. Holidays have been abandoned, weekends lost, episodes of Doctor Who missed. Tragic.

I’ve done what every good Scotswoman does when faced with adversity: I’ve made a massive amount of food.

Look! Here are lots of jars of mincemeat:



They don’t look very appetising, but each jar is filled with fruit, zest, spices, sugar, treacle and brandy. Mmm! I made this back in September, because it needs to mature for a good while before it’s used.

Next up, Christmas cake! I was feeling cocky and decided to use a much more complicated recipe than last year; there was a lot of whisking and soaking and warming and blending. Also, it took four and a half hours to bake. Crazy. I made the cake in early October, and now it lives in the cake stand and sucks up a few spoons of brandy once a week. It’s like a quiet but needy pet.



This weekend, I made sweet chilli jam. It’s good with cheese toasties, sausage rolls and other cosy lazy lunchfood. These will be Christmas presents for the lovely Tap! team, who’ve worked like demons all year long.



That’s it! When I’m stressed, I find an afternoon in the kitchen is pretty relaxing. I also like the ancient tradition of boiling, baking and jarring in the autumn. In centuries gone by, mincemeat, chutneys and dense fruitcakes were a way to preserve harvest fruits through long winters, providing much of the calories and good cheer required for dark days in the Northern hemisphere. I especially love that my modern mincemeat recipe held on to a medieval memory; the fruit sealed in beef suet to stop fermentation.

Next up is my birthday, then Christmas. Cake for everyone!

x

Oh hello, how’s things? Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Not wearing black. Or brown.
The long dark winter has inspired me to wear more funky colour, and it’s kind of fun. I’ve now got a purple coat and a lime-green sweater and a stripey knitted hat. And golden shoes. I heartily recommend wearing colourful clothes if you’re in a winter funk.

Grappling with feminism
I thought adolescent-style world-grumps would disappear as I got older, but instead I’m getting more grumpy. I don’t like hearing my lovely and beautiful female friends talking about their bodies with disgust. I don’t like that even the most successful female pop stars on MTV are still half-naked in their videos. I don’t like the word ‘hot’. I don’t like that the Guardian website’s ‘Women’ tab is located in the ‘Life & Style’ pages. Oh dear. I’ve become a ranty blogger. Let’s move on.

Visiting a con
I went to the SFX Weekender to assist the boy, who was handling the awards presentation. It was cool.

All these people really like Ianto off Torchwood:



And here’s me next to the Tardis of Love, in which two attendees were discovered, ahem, in flagrante delicto.



As you can see, I am regenerating.

I was looking at frocks on ye olde internets today when I became intensely irate at the fashion 'advice' spewed all over the place by well-meaning bloggers and should-know-better, right-on women's sites. Because almost everywhere I look, ladies are being advised to hide or cover or disguise or generally be ashamed of themselves.

Arms both skinny and chunky should be sleeved, twiggy legs need boots, long necks need necklaces or scarves, pale triceps must be fake-tanned, thick waists need flowy optical illusion, flat chests need bolstering, COVER YOUR SHAME, for chrissakes, won't you think of the children?

Apparently my only hope, as a stumpy sturdy girl, is to wear a plunging v-neck and swaddle the rest of my being in burlap sacking, and then to limp around ringing a bell, shouting 'PUNISH ME, FOR I ENJOY CAKES ON A BI-MONTHLY BASIS AND AM UNDESERVING OF LOVE OR NICE TIGHTS.'

Well screw you, internet. I shall wear sleeveless tops with abandon! And kitten heels! And calf-length boots! And horizontal stripes! Actually, no, that would be awful. But I'll do those other things, and I'll look bloody fabulous while I'm at it.

ppppppttttthhbbbbpppp

This summer has turned me into a real No-Fun Phyllis. I've become obsessed with keeping the flat clean, which is so unlike me that I'm amazed the boy hasn't checked to see if there's a man in the walls with a pistol trained on my face or something. Also, I've been doing responsible things such as learning how to reverse park and completing my school work a whole week before I have to. AND I put our ten thousand regular number of empty wine bottles in a plastic crate to put out to the recycling van tomorrow. The worst part about all this is that being organised and tidy has in no way made me more relaxed or good-housewifey. Now I just spend all my time worrying about dropping Bombay Mix on the carpet. BAH.

Here is how to make Kir Royale (Not sure if it should have that last 'e' or not - French speakers plz comment).

Kir Royale
You will need:
1 bottle champagne - Yes, I know. A good cava will suffice.
1 bottle creme de cassis - It's an INVESTMENT okay?
A pretty glass
Chopstick, knitting needle or other implement

Chill champagne until ice cold.
Pour a decent measure of creme de cassis into glass.
Top up with champagne.
Stir with pointy implement.
Enjoy sense of Bombay Mix-worry slipping away in a haze of blackcurranty deliciousness.

I have singularly failed to get even an interview for any of the art teaching jobs I have applied for this term, despite being abundantly qualified and enthusiastically referenced. Dunno why; today I phoned up one of the schools in search of rejection feedback and was not allowed to speak to anyone other than the receptionist. Thanks!

To cheer myself up, I am trying to think of funny things, such as when Chris had a shirt that was white with white stripes, or when I smoked a cigar, or when Cope found his ancestral haemorrhoid shop. Even just typing 'haemorrhoid' made me laugh, so I suppose there's hope. I also laughed thinking about when Darien's cheese was officially a liquid and couldn't go on a plane, but I don't think that story exists on the internet.

Now please join in with the despairing hilarity in the comments - tell us a joke or a story or link to a funny post in your own blog. Or send me an email! I like those too. I'd also like to extend a special Ribbledoot invite to my mother - an avid reader but neglectful commenter - to leave us a good anecdote from me and Gra's childhood too. If you can remember any, that is. I remember mainly vomiting in cars and playing around building sites. Ah, the '80s!

Come on, everyone, if we don't laugh we'll cry.

Christmas+San Francisco+Tax Bill = Financial Ruin. I am poorer than a church mouse and narrowly avoiding bank charges. Stupid Bath and its stupid tiny employment pool.
Here is a list of things you can do when you have no money and there's another month til payday:

Invent new kinds of sandwiches.
Recount your past yuppie glory days to old women at bus stops.
Howl at a photo of the moon.
Learn Bob Dylan songs on the guitar.
Eat a lot of staffroom biscuits.

Hey ho, it passes the time. Bye then!

When I complained to my brother about having to complete a tax return he mused "The man on the advert says that 'tax doesn't have to be taxing'. Except that it does ... tax, by its very nature, is taxing." Which frankly I think should be the new motto of HM Revenue and Customs. Hi! Happy New Year! Let's begin a new paragraph!

This morning the boy went back to work, but not before waking me to recount today's most ludicrous story on BBC Breakfast, in which a roving reporter had been dispatched to examine a woman's pants*. We both find ourselves increasingly incensed at the 'news' items on BBC Breakfast, particularly when they are relayed by bumbling Bill Turnbull, a man who behaves as if he's been carjacked, bundled into a van, attacked with panstick and forced to present breakfast television at gunpoint. I think the problem is that we didn't have a telly at the moment the show changed from a cornflakes-and-atrocities serious news program to a scarlet sofa-based grinfest, so we can't really assimilate properly. Our mutual loathing of 'Strictly' stems from BBC Breakfast, which follows the winners and losers with ludicrously detailed updates occurring throughout the morning. It's utterly infuriating.

All of which explains why we don't really watch much television. Too much emotional investment.

*Incidentally, I find it vaguely offensive that they keep being referred to as 'giant'. Large, maybe, or ample, but surely they can't be classified as giant until a family of three have camped under them, or they've been hoisted up the rigging of a stricken tea clipper to save the lives of a hundred beleaguered sailors.

In soup news, I am making some broth-type chickeny soup. I put in two mugs of lentils, but now when I stir it I can't find the lentils anywhere. Where have they gone?

Last night we went to the Copes' for a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner. Americans know how to eat! Thank you Copes, we had a great time! Many and varied Welshfolk were pleasant enough to put up with our combined social ineptitude, in particular our ignorance of organised sports and Strictly Come Dancing. Mercifully, the boy was driving and I remained sober in solidarity with him, avoiding total idiocy by a narrow squeak.

Today, perhaps as punishment for offending strangers with my art 'skills', I woke up with horrific sinus-and-throat pain and really hot eyes. The boy originally mocked my hot eyes* but soon rallied round when it became clear I wouldn't get up without lashings of sympathy and hair-patting. Thanks.

*Me: '...and my feet are cold.'
Boy: 'Oh dear. If only you could put your feet on your eyes.'

In other news, this is my last week of being 26. I can't really rate or slate 26 as an age. It was completely adequate.

The boy has gone to Germany for Oktoberfest. Or possibly he's taken a few days out to watch the leaves turn with his Other Family. Either way, I am alone again and grumpy as all hell. Here are some of my current grumps:

Night storage radiators
I have spent the last four days alternately shivering cold and AS HOT AS THE SUN ITSELF. This is because night storage radiators require the householder to psychically predict the next day's temperature, wind chill and cloud cover in order to set the overnight 'store'. While admittedly it is possible to check the weather in the general area using that 'television' device that you young people are so fond of, our flat happens to be perched on top of a precipice high above Historic Bath and thus has its own unique microclimate which is utterly impossible to predict by any modern method. Of course, if you asked one of our neighbours they'd say things like 'Ar, hang a skinned cat by the ear on yonder lintle; if his eyes glow copper, the morrow will be fair indeed.' But, honestly, our neighbours are crazy.

Now I've spent so long grumbling about storage radiators that I've forgotten what the rest of my issues were. Apart from the obvious. Issues, I mean.

In other news: do you like my new website layout? The boy made it by scanning in lots of things from my sewing box. Clever! I guess he felt guilty about the whole bigamy thing. I am hoping to add some textiles tutorials and embroidery patterns soon but, you know, I'm hoping to do a lot of things soon. Like clean my bathroom and learn to drive without screaming.

All summer I've been grappling with terrible and ridiculous nightmares. Limbs and bodies and snakes and beasties, scary noises and sweaty awakenings. I can only assume that this is a response to moving house, these being my first utterly dark and completely silent nights in many years. The boy doesn't seem to have been affected, though, so that theory could be mince. Whatever the reason, I am too sleepy to do anything worth reporting.

The only interesting thing that I'm trying to get finished started is my entry for the Art of the Stitch competition. First prize four grand! I swing between thinking my entry idea is either crap or brilliant, but - hey! - you've gotta be in it to win it, as they say.

Bank holiday weekend, hooray! I start my new job in ten days, but I'm not worried. Naive? Probably.

The other night I laughed so much at this List of Unlikely Disasters that I cried a bit and the boy took my laptop away.

In driving news, I am supposed to take Carlos to Sainsbury's on my own today. Place your bets now on whether I will:
a) Make it there in one piece but suffer a panic attack in the car park.
b) Crash or damage Carlos to such an extent that the boy will divorce me.
c) Get arrested
d) Die.

In dinner news, we are having steak. Yeehar.

Hello everyone, happy new year! How are you? You look great! Check out my new upbeat demeanour, do you think it will last to the end of the post? Who knows and, more importantly, who cares? This first paragraph is really turning into a punctuation frenzy.

The boy went back to work today, which to me seems horrific and uncivilised. Everyone knows that 2nd January is a public holiday for Scots due to our genetic predisposition for hard liquor and general all-night revelry on the 31st. Ah well. As it turns out, we weren't invited to any parties and couldn't be arsed to have one of our own anyway. We ended up watching War of the Worlds on the projector until midnight, which lent a disturbingly apocalyptic edge to the evening. Or it would've done if the boy hadn't kept singing themes from Jeff Wayne's musical version over the top of the action.

I go back to work tomorrow. So far I have spent my day self-medicating with herbal remedies and Innocent smoothies. Here, for those of you who missed it first time round, is a recipe for use with Innocent smoothies.

Jeff Colada
Ingredients:
1 large bottle Innocent pineapple, coconut and banana smoothie
1 smallish bottle Bacardi rum

Pour measure of rum into some kind of fancy glass. Fill rest of glass with Innocent drink. Stir with spoon or chopstick or cotton bud. Drink. Sing Pina Colada song until spouse threatens divorce. Repeat ad nauseam.

Don't say I never give you anything.

2007 pretty much sucks so far, although perhaps I haven't given it a chance. This is traditionally the time of year that I pick up an enormous pile of holiday brochures and spend a week gradually downgrading from three weeks in Madagascar to four days at Center Parcs. I used to get depressed about this when everyone I knew seemed to be on an exotic Gap Year, but now that I am older and more mature I realise that it doesn't matter because Center Parcs fucking rocks.

That is all.

Holy mother, our flat has suddenly got very cold indeed. The flat is at least a hundred years old and has those kind of single-glazed, wooden-framed windows that allow the polar maritime air to whistle freely through the building, creating atmospheric draughts and miniature eddies that dance around our sleeping forms. I am currently wearing all of my normal clothes, a large fluffy robe and a blanket in order to prevent hypothermia from setting in. I really hope I don't have to wee at any time in the near future, I really can't be bothered.

Here is an actual conversation the boy and I had about one of our Christmas cards which I think illustrates why neither of us ever had much success with flatmates:

Look, the cat says 'meow', the dog says 'woof', but the mouse ... IS MUTE!
He says nothing! He should say 'meep meep'.
And look, the artist can only draw cats, look at the dog -
He has a cat's face! And weird, stick-like legs.
Anyway, mice say 'squeak', not 'meep'.
So who's it from?

What is wrong with us? We appear to be collectively straddling the fine line between 'quirky' and 'special'. Why did either of us see fit to angst over the mute cartoon mouse? And why bother critiquing the artist's rendering of a dog wearing a Santa hat? What is the point? What is the bloody point?

In other news, I have missed the last posting date for all of my Christmas presents. This means I am going to bad sister/cousin/niece/friend hell. All of those hells. At once. SORRY EVERYONE.

And that's why I don't like cricket.

Take my job, no take it
Work is like rubbing my brain all over with a cheese grater for ten hours a day, then patting it with a washcloth soaked in white spirit for the other fourteen. Tomorrow I have to take a PSD session on mental health. Irony abounds.

Stats
Apparently the vast majority of Ribble readers are American. Hello Americans! Join in the commenting fun! Also, October stats show I've lost 20 of my regular visitors. I've driven them away with my grumbling and crochet-talk. COME BACK, I CAN CHANGE!

Friendship = Gifts
Why not be my friend? I will make you things like this and this. Special consideration given to applicants from the London area who can quote extensively from The Big Lebowski and/or cult BBC3 sitcoms.