Tuscan style bangers and mash

So a disclaimer: when I say "tuscan style" this isn't actually a recipe passed to me by a homely Italian woman, or something I enjoyed in a little trattoria in the countryside outside Pisa and have tried to replicate.

When I say Tuscan style what I mean is I cooked something I envisage a homely Italian woman might, if she too had left over sausages from her Sunday fry up, bags of tomatoes left over from her birthday pizza party, limited cooking skills and only enough energy after a Monday at work to do about 3 mins and 42 seconds worth of food prep.

Stop me buying all 25 of these excellent winter coats

But maybe allow me to buy one? Ok three. Everyone needs three good winter coats, we all know that.

In my defence too, I've been wearing an asos pale blue cocoon coat (shown in this November 2014 post) I bought from a market for £30 in 2013 as my main winter bae ever since, so it is not like I buy hundreds of pounds of coats every year. But daily journeys on the tube, too many times left crumpled in the corner of some booth in a bar, regular walks in the rain without an umbrella and countless burrito related accidents means no amount of dry cleaning or (discouraged on the label) time in the washing machine can get out the greyish tinge it has gathered over the years.

My original planned post for today was going to be something around ice lollies and alcohol, but Autumn feels really here this September no? Coat season is upon us, ice lolly season is mainly behind us, and I am looking for a coat like my pale blue one: something with a dash of stand out, something I can wear with jeans and a jumper, with work clothes (which tbh are often jeans and a jumper, but are sometimes smarter) and occasionally even a cocktail dress.

So which one? Aaah all the great choices (and I didn't even include all the bloomin great kimonos out there this season, because they don't really count right, so I won't be including them in my self imposed coat ration.) So kimonos and dressy jackets aside, I think one fur, one wool, and one parka/trench is probably fair...

Styling my unused fireplace

...And when I say unused fireplace, I really mean chimney breast.

When I smooshed up this joint (and when I say joint I mean blog) in January, I created a place to write about smooshing up my other joint (my flat) too, because tbh it is where a lot of my financial, emotional and mental resource goes. So here, 9 months and 9 days after the page was first created, welcome to my first "design" post.

Eventually I am hoping to fill this area full of Ikea hacks, DIYs and obviously tours of my cool friend's houses (cos interior decor meets nosiness are the best blog posts ever), but for now a wall of mirrors, sort of.

30 before 30

As I sit typing this Des'ree Life (oooh life) has just come on BBC radio 2 and I can feel in my shimmying shoulders that this post could get a little heavy. I mean heavy in a "what a time to be alive!" way - not heavy in a "I am so anxious I am gonna cry" way, but still, deeper than a post about how much I love pasta.

Shortly after I turned 21, just after I had graduated university in the midst of a recession and had no clue what to do with my life now I was off the education conveyor belt, I made a list of things I wanted to do before I reached the not so ripe or old age of 25. And not to boast gang, but I did loads of things. 

I ran a bloody marathon, literally. The London marathon (when I had never run anything ever before). I backpacked alone through Vietnam, Cambodia and India. I stayed at an Ashram and at least on the days when I was not held captive in my room by crazed monkeys on my balcony, I went to sunrise morning and meditation classes where an actual yogi with a long black beard and white harem pants attempted to push a tube in my nose and take it out my mouth. (That did not work, and was not per say on my list, but going all Eat Pray Love and staying in an Ashram in the Indian Himalayas was).