Once upon a time

Yesterday, we fancied hot cross buns. Realising of course, this being Easter Sunday, that all of the shops were shut, I decided to make my own.

Once upon a time, I was a blogger, a food writer, a travel writer, a ghost writer. I travelled endlessly, was Contributing Ed to a cruise magazine, wrote two cookbooks for someone who got to pretend she wrote them (and for ages afterwards, I’d see her sharing a recipe on Instagram with ‘my recipe for… this or that’ and used to chuckle to myself (I never minded, I knew what I was signing up for). But, dusting down my old kitchen notebook with ‘English Mum’ on the cover that was gifted by some brand or other, I was suddenly aware that whipping up a batch of HCBs doesn’t come naturally to me any more. The blog and all my own recipes have now gone forever as I recently decided to stop paying the hosting fee. Now, I’m powering away in a career in the NHS, entrenched in improving my lung cancer pathway, trying to make things better for people, doing what seems like endless appraisals and meetings, and planning for more resident doctor industrial action at work, and all that seems a million years ago.

Once upon a time, I was - so I thought ha - happily married and had been for more than 25 years. Now, I’m ridiculously, helplessly, hopelessly in love with someone absolutely wonderful. Turns out I wasn’t happy after all. Now I’m really, genuinely happy happy: valued, loved, supported, noticed… all that good stuff.

Once upon a time, I lived in a normal 3 bed house in a little estate with a postage stamp garden that was patchy lawn and nothing else. Now, I live in the prettiest, wonkiest 500 year old cottage - she is occasionally grumpy and slams the odd door or turns the shower on, but generally, I think she’s happy to have been brought back to life, and we love her endlessly. I went out to look for the moon the other night and was struck by how pretty she is with all her twinkly lights and glowy windows, even with the horrid 1980s loft conversion (we recladded it with wood, it was worse with tiles, if you can believe that).

Once upon a time, I never ventured outside apart from occasionally picking up the poo. Now, we have a lovely garden full of flowers, wildlife, and hopefully again this year - fruit and vegetables! My first job every morning is to go out and say hello to all our flowers, and the fat pigeon who nests in the prickle bush and eats all our pea shoots.

Bonus pic of the dog looking like a rotisserie chicken in front of the fire

Anyhoo, enough navel gazing. I have exciting life updates:

We finished the path! Honestly, it nearly killed us, J has a really bad back and I think I’ve got housemaid’s knee, but we managed to do it all with bricks snaffled free off Facebook Marketplace, and a couple of bags of sand. We’re flipping delighted with it, have a massive sense of satisfaction and saved ourselves a couple of grand into the bargain. Yes it’s wonky, but isn’t everything around here.

We got this gate from Bucks Retro and Vintage, who Lisa Dawson mentioned the other day, funnily enough. Should probably paint it but I like all the different layers

Ouch, me knees

Also, the tulips are coming! I know I’m new at this gardening stuff but honestly, I didn’t know that they don’t always come back every year. I might not have spent quite as much money on them had I known! I had planned to plant them in drifts of colour, but then after I sorted them, the wind blew them all off the garden table, so there are a few drifts but then it all kind of dissolves into chaos.

Also, the pelargoniums arrived from Fibrex Nurseries Ltd, and they smell amazing. I had to cut these flowers off to help the plant grow stronger, but they smelt like ginger and sage so I kept them and put them in a tiny ink pot that I dug up in the garden.

We went to Copenhagen for my birthday! I’ll do a separate post but it was fab. It’s pretty, spotless, the food is amazing, the people are lovely and VERY forgiving of you strangling their lovely language, and I got some beautiful Georg Jensen earrings for my birthday (oh and I found out it’s pronounced ‘gyo yensen’ just so’s you know!)

These are they. Aren’t they gorgeous?

That’s it, I think you’re up to date. Oh and I did make the hot cross buns (well, not cross buns because I couldn’t be bothered with that bit). And they weren’t bad at all. Mama’s still got it :)