back up blog

Last week I got to hang out with my Rome girls , one of who flew in for a visit and the other who apparently isn't leaving London any time soon at all , YAY FOR ME. This picture makes me laugh because it is so Italian. Three variations of espresso, three versions of exactly the same drink but different ( but the same, but different...).   To an Italian, these subtle alterations to the brown, syrupy goodness are as personal as the way you wipe your arse, even though to anyone else it seems ridiculous. When the waiter set these down on the table he said, somewhat sarcastically,  these are all practically the same drink, just one has milk and one has hot water... and we all giggled at him and looked at each other knowingly because we three knew; we silently understood it was a Roman thing. It was our thing. Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!  Twitter .  Facebook .   Email .  Instagram .   Bloglovin ' .

“What?” I said, as I turned round in the kitchen to see my brother giggling at me from across the room. “ Are you laughing at me?” He shook his head, almost a bit disbelievingly. “Aren’t you a mental?” he said. “Don’t you just… love life ?” I was stood in my pink silk pyjamas and floor-length Japanese kimono, halfway through belting along with whatever Sunday Morning Love Songs was churning out as I threw eggs and flour and milk into the brown mixing bowl we got at the charity shop for £2. Calum was sat at the table slicing fruit for stewing; my brother’s fella was on the terrace, blowing smoke to the London skyline . “Well, yeah,” I laughed back at him, looking around the flat. “’Course I love life. My best friend is here in my London apartment, and last night we went out dressed up as the judges off of X-Factor, and we’re having pancakes, and being a little homemade family, and this is my life, and I didn’t know it could all be this lovely, and so it’s a bit brilliant.” I did dramati

Look, I might not know a lot about anything, really, but what I do know is that when it's suddenly 8 p.m. on a  Saturday night and you realise you've been eating chocolate cookies and telling your fortune via opening random pages of a poetry book with your best friend instead of planning Halloween outfits, mistakes will be made . This was one of those mistakes. Calum landed on my doorstep for the second time in as many weeks this weekend (LUCKY. FREAKING. ME.) and I maybekindasorta forgot to tell him he was my date to a Halloween party that night. " I don't know whether to be Diana Ross or Kate Middleton ," I said to him as I put another biscuit in my mouth from a horizontal position on the sofa. Calum sat upright, " Wait- it's fancy dress...? " " It's halloween! OF COURSE IT IS! " " But I don't have a costume. " I did thinking. " Wear what you've got on now, add some braces and a hat, and be Louis Walsh off of X

I thought my brother was going to win- he stayed ahead of me the whole game. But then I played my last tile before he did, claiming the game as my own. The word I won with? FOOD. (obviously.) Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!  Twitter .  Facebook .   Email .  Instagram .   Bloglovin ' .

Since we met, I’ve fallen in love with somebody new about once a week. It started with you. You, the guy who travelled through three countries in an afternoon to be with me. You, the guy who sang in supermarket checkout lines and didn’t care who turned to stare. You, the guy who twirled me around, teaching me to dance like they do in the black and white movies, never chastising when I messed up the steps (again), just tittering and making a show of yourself to distract from my embarrassment. You, the guy who made the talk meaningful, giggles easy, trust simple. I fell in love with you hard, and fast. Willingly. I was ready to love. I chose you. And I continued to fall, even after you told me that you were seeing somebody- kinda. Maybe. You didn’t know how to describe it . Of course, I didn’t let you know I’d already fallen too deep to care about the details. Just nodded, changed the subject. Pretended I’d never heard it in the first place. Carried on falling in love because it

Yesterday was a sad day. On Sunday evening my parents called to say they had made a decision: it was time. The family dog, Harry , was to be put to sleep.  If you've never lost a pet, this lady can articulate the feeling better than I ever could. All I can say is that my brother and I felt all funny and weird and strange. So knowing that at 9 a.m. yesterday morning it was happening, we decided to sack the day off. We went to be sad in Hampstead Heath instead, where we shared Harry-related memories and laughed at the puppies of strangers and realised that our little friend, the one who we've had in our ever-changing lives for over sixteen years, was gone.

This is just how I'm rolling lately. There's so much happening, every single day, and I know it's because I placed an order with the universe and goddamnit she's gonna deliver for me. It makes my head go all woozy. Put hashtag overwhelmed after this post. And then first world problems. Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!  Twitter .  Facebook .   Email .  Instagram .   Bloglovin ' .

On Sunday, I woke up my bestest friend in the whole wide world from my sofa, and ate banana and honey pancakes with him. Then we had an idea for a project we want to work on together, so I lounged in my kimono and he lolled in yesterday's trousers and for four straight hours we made charts and and brainstorms and Googledocs, and then one of us looked at the clock and said, ' Oh. It's 2 p.m. We should... brush our teeth? ' We meandered around Columbia Road flower market and Brick Lane vintage stalls whilst wearing hats and two things became obvious: we wanted cupcakes with an overwhelming unattractive desire (me), and the old fashioned fish and chips wrapped in actual proper newspaper looked divine (him). Budgetary restrictions meant that I found myself doing a 'Mama Janie' and saying, COME ON. YOU DON'T NEED IT FROM A SHOP, I CAN DO YOU THAT AT HOME. Which is exactly what she used to say to my brother and me when we wanted McDonald's, and instead she&#

So, that bit where I said to celebrate Calum being in town I'd make non-ironic scoresheets for X-Factor? I actually wasn't kidding. Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!  Twitter .  Facebook .   Email .  Instagram .   Bloglovin ' .

I’d known  of  him for maybe 18 months, but only met him face-to-face two weeks ago. He’d been on my university campus as an associate lecturer, read me in the student newspaper, and visited this blog. He did adding on the  Book of Face , and I suppose it started how all modern  stranger -to- friends -to- maybe-more  stories start: he clicked ‘like’, I clicked ‘share’; comments were tentatively made, and eventually private messages exchanged. Facebook: bringing students and teachers together from around the globe. The  day I left Rome , he left his home, too. The week I ventured to  DREAMERSchool  he headed to London. Right before I began my own Life From Scratch we did IM-ing. Where will you be living?  he said. East London,  I replied. No way- that’s where I am,  he said. I’ll be right by Shoreditch,  I replied. Turns out, he’s four minutes from my house, door to door. We met for a drink. I was scared, so the first time he asked I said I was busy. Then he asked again, you know,  casu

So, here’s the thing. I got taken out last Sunday. By a boy. A boy who is an old school friend, and who I hadn’t seen in eleventy thousand years, and who emailed me as soon as he knew I was going to be moving to London to say, Hey! It’s been far too long! We gotta catch up when you land! Obviously I replied with, Dude. If you wanna take me out and show me the town when I get in, the pleasure would quite literally be ALL MINE. Because when I weighed up the pros and cons of being so damned cheeky I decided that I’d rather put myself out there as available-for-the-price-of-a-cocktail over preserving any dignity I might have left and suggesting a much more budget-friendly paper cup of tap water in the (free) park. Living the dream ain’t cheap, kids. My old school friend (OSF) doesn’t live in London, but has to come into the city all the time for work, and last Monday he had an early meeting so came to town and stayed in a hotel the night before. It was at this hotel that I was to meet him.

Ain't no big thang, Internet, but guess who has two thumbs and makes banana and apple cake just for fun? Yup. (*points thumbs at self*) THIS GIRL. Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!  Twitter .  Facebook .   Email .  Instagram .   Bloglovin ' . Want to say something about this post? Talk to me!  Twitter .  Facebook .   Email .  Instagram .   Bloglovin ' .