Ah, the thrill of the blank page…

Ooh, phone the boss; it’s Thursday morning and I’m pulling a sickie…

That’ll be a quick phone call to myself then. Yup, I am now the boss of me having waved a fond, slightly manic farewell to almost 20 years of office employment, regular wages and financial security. The paid sickie day (and the paid holiday for that matter) no longer exists.

As it is early days yet in the world of self-employment, I greeted the arrival of this morning with delight (before rolling over for another small snooze, as the tyranny of the daily commute no longer applies).

Hello brave new world – another writer wishes to join you and wonders what to do next. As I am a top procrastinator, I’ve come up with the following list of the best things to do to delay real work:

1. Write to do lists (oh joy, updating my blog after a long absence was on the list so there’s one item ticked off already
2. Start up a Twitter account – hey, Twitter is awash with procrastinating writers
3. Tidy up the spare room and turn it into an office, complete with a proper filing system
4. Do wedding-related stuff (actually, this isn’t procrastinating seeing as I am getting married in exactly four weeks’ time eeks, eeks where did all the time go and why have I yet to make a decision on the cake, my hair, what I wear on my head..?)
5. Update social media profiles – hey I’m at home and I’m available for all kinds of writing, proofing, editing work and the odd voiceover…
6. Plan what to have for lunch and dinner, admittedly this can take up as lot more time than it should and can involve several detours through bakery websites and blogs
7. Put the washing out/iron shirts/clean the bathroom (insert your household chore of choice).
8. Write another list of luxury items you can no longer buy (magazines, premium skincare, a foundation to add to the collection of eight or so I already possess and blasted DIET COKE).
9. Phone a friend or two with angst-related ‘what am I doing, will this work out, do you think I’m insane…?’ woes.
10. And finally – read other people’s blogs! There are marvellous examples out there and if you look to the right you’ll see just some of them!

The Top 10 Ingredients for an Awesome Hen Night

I promise you, oh reader, tonnes of people attended this party and drank a mere one glass each.

Stick the word ‘hen’ (bachelorette in US/Aussie speak) in front of ‘party’ and certain ideas spring to mind – mainly the lewd, rude and crude.

I am a sophisticated lady of a certain age (what I actually mean is that my idea of a rollickin’ good time is buying delicious magazine and I struggle to stay awake beyond 10pm of an evening) and thus night clubs, cocktails and chocolate shaped to resemble male body parts were never going to appeal for a party which supposedly marks the end of spinsterhood.*

I appealed to middle sister and she leapt at the challenge of a hen party. It was amazing – fizz featured heavily, baking abounded and laughter lingered long into the following day as my mum, sisters and I recounted all that had happened.

So in the spirit of generosity, I’d like to share with you my ideas for the top 10 hen night ideals:

1. Good friends. Obvs! Luckily, I possess witty and interesting chums so that was the easy part. One of the friends whom I met years ago when I moved to a brand new city was generous enough to introduce me to all of her friends so I didn’t need to find any of my own. This excellent tactic of identifying a popular and generous soul and then ingratiating self into that person’s company is one I would advise any of you moving to a new place to adopt.

2. Good bakers. I know a genius baker and she made me my very own Swiss roll, complete with my name on it too. One sister made cheese scones, another Victoria sponge and a friend brought a cupcake bouquet.

3. Silly games. Consequences and charades, namely, and a friend who is an excellent raconteur**. A few glasses of fizz and the hilarity obviously increases ten fold.

4. Prizes. Naff ones. My sisters have small children and therefore any kid’s party needs a prize for each child so no-one feels missed out. Tiger moms may disagree – does competition motivate and create future leaders? – but mum and sisters decided to apply the same principle to my hens and toured charity and pound shops to provide prizes so that every one of us won something. As a result, people won the world’s biggest bra, a Charles and Diana commemorative plate,  a bottle of femfresh (ahem!) and a Katie Price face mask (and others).

5. Oh, fizz obviously from the picture above. We sipped decorously.

6. A fine spread of gorgeous grub in general… Some of us**, ahem, maybe did not sip so decorously, but there was a lot of food to soak up the alcohol units (clean eaters, look away now) - quiche, crisps, dips***, chocolate cake, millionaire’s shortbread and pizzas.

7. Enter the wine tasting element. We used the excellent thirty-fifty company. They came to my house! They were very knowledgeable! They shared excellent wines! They identified super tasters!****

8. Wine tasting also involved cheese tasting. A match made in heaven surely…? Aged cheddar, really squidgy brie and a beautiful blue.

9. Family members who are super organised and can email folks, co-ordinate arrangements and arrange games on top of all that. Me, not so – therefore step forward Brenda, Lucy and Sally and take a bow.

10. Good friends, again! Thank you Pam, Julie, Maryanne, Lucy, Jackie, Josie, Morag, Val, Louise, Lorna, Connie, Jacqui, Helen, Astrid – and Karen, sorry you missed it for the snow!

 

*Oh, here I am being snotty about certain elements of a hen party and a willie water pistol did feature in mine. And a small, blow-up male doll with a large appendage.

**Pam, and er actually all of my friends tell an excellent story…

**Erm, the bride to be might have been one of the over-indulgers in all things fizzy and alcoholic. Yum and regrets.

***Anyone else remember that film? Weird Science… so whenever I hear the phrase ‘chips and dips’, I want to say Kelly LeBrock’s immortal lines ‘chips, dips, chains and whips’.

****I was one (ha ha ha) and then the genetic connection was proved – mum and two sisters proved to be also. Now, what can be done with said skill…?

 

Writing What Your Readers Want…

This is my end goal…

Oh my goodness – Sunday was an exciting day for me. I blogged about my decision to leave work and attempt to carve out a writing career for me and I seemed to strike a chord with fellow bloggers.

In blogging land, I am a teeny-weeny person with a small group of followers (I love you all and am at this very moment blowing you virtual kisses, promise) and therefore when my wordpress app kept bleeping away with new likes, I practically leapt out of my seat in fever-pitched joy. Oh you lovely, lovely likers…*

I recently read a post by igamesmom and she talked about what she has learned from blogging – a most useful piece which urges people to read the blogs they follow and tailor their own writing accordingly. Good point madam!

I initially set out to write a blog about my forthcoming nuptials** and managed to bore myself. I also drifted off topic on a regular basis. A crime surely, if one is trying to establish a loyal fan base with a niche interest?

“Emma,” I said sternly to myself, “loyal follower number 1 and number 2 are cake fans and here you are boring them to tears ranting on about your predilection for expensive skincare. And what about poor loyal follower number two? She’s an excellent exerciser, and she surely does not give two finicky figs that you drink far too much diet coke***?”

From the many wonderful blogs I read, I note that life-changing is often a theme – people giving up jobs, taking up baking, starting their own businesses or charting weight loss/getting fit journeys – which is maybe why the Sunday blog received the number of likes it did? So, I thinks to myself, folks want to read about life changing and how that works out.

On the plus side, getting married is life-changing so I can continue the odd post about that, but my dears I think I shall continue my blog on the theme of how chucking in your office job and giving up financial security and a pension can be, ahem, very good for you…

 

*I think I am tearing up. Losing. It.

**Nuptials – I love that word. Along with splendid, gracious and eloquence – words which deserve much wider usage, surely?

***Crap. Despite the NLP session and regular nagging by concerned fiancé I am a coke addict once more. Bah.

 

Life Changing? Let’s Go the Whole Hog

And so…less than ten weeks before I’m due to get married, an event not known for its positive effects on a couple’s finances, I drop a bombshell on beloved.

“I want to give up work.”

I want to write, read, blog and bake – and find a way of making it pay. Blame it on too many years reading women’s magazines (especially the kind that feature all those women jacking in jobs to create their own businesses/work for themselves), blame it on too much time spent on blogs which all promote the idea of Living Your Dream…

…blame it on too many self-help books, but yes I’m Feeling the Fear and Doing it Anyway, Ending the Struggle and Dancing with Life (!) and Stopping Talking Starting Doing*. Leaps of faith aplenty.

Those who urge caution might point out that writing on the side is do-able with a career and a far less risky strategy to take, but with enough savings put by to see me through several months I’ve decided I might as well try this properly.

My initial thoughts are – Yay! No more commute! Yay! I’ll go for a run or walk every morning (and be super fit in time for the wedding hey hey)! Yay! I’ll bake my way through every single cake recipe I own! Yay! I will buy a fitness ball and sit in front of my laptop tapping away on a keyboard and exercising my abs at the same time! Yay! I can see my mum and sisters so often!

You will note, dear reader, the thoughts focus more on not working, than working. Hmm.

The book that is in me may be half-way written, but there are an awful lots of stages between writing a book and seeing it in WH Smith (oh, if only). The path to obscurity (littered with the bodies of many) beckons…but I finally decided that fear of not trying outweighed fear of failure so here goes.

 

*Apologies. I have rendered these titles incorrectly to fit.

**I also apportion blame to Susan Cain. Her book encourages those of an introverted nature to think they can do just about anything, instead of worrying that natural shyness and lack of pushiness will hold them back.

***Re the picture of Freddie above, no reason for it. I just fancied adding a pic of my pampered pet.

Never Let An Ingredient Go to Waste

Ooh, Mr Kipling – I may well have bettered you…

Any excuse for a little baking… I had ground and flaked almonds in the cupboards rapidly about to go out of date* and home-made raspberry jam in the fridge so Bakewell Tart beckoned.

I borrowed from the Mary Berry recipe as her recipes are excellent, but in my new tradition of confident baking I fiddled a little with the recipe. The impulse is born not out of arrogance – ‘of course I can do better’ – but more because I’m not keen on being told exactly what to do. The inner rebel emerges and recipes are thus adapted**.

Mary, as you may know from her TV appearances, is whippet thin and therefore I conclude that baked goodies aren’t a big part of her daily diet. I, of course, am on the wedding diet so would also promote her message –eat delicious home-made cakes and biscuits in very small quantities no more than two or three times a week and enjoy a lovely life!

Bakewell Tart – serves (depends on how many slices you deem fit)

• 175g plain flour
• 75g chilled  butter (salted is fine)
• 2tbsp icing sugar
• 2-3 tbsp cold water

• 4 tbsp raspberry jam
• 125g butter , unsalted
• 125g caster sugar
• 125g ground almonds
• 2 free-range eggs, beaten
• 1tbsp lemon juice
• 50g flaked almonds

Heat the oven to 180 degrees.

To make the pastry, measure the flour into a bowl and rub in the chilled butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. You can also use a food processor or – a ‘me trick’, use a handheld blender, dipping into the mix briefly and pulsing. Once breadcrumbed, add the water slowly, mixing until the flour and butter mix together all comes together.

Roll out on a lightly floured surface and use to line a 20cm loose-bottomed tart or flan tin. Allow the excess pastry to hang over as it will shrink. Prick it all over. Chill for 30 mins. Line with foil and fill with baking beans or rice (to weigh the pastry down).

Cook for 15 minutes, then take out the foil and baking beans/rice and cook for another three minutes to dry it out.

Take out and allow to cool for five minutes. Spread the jam evenly over the base. Melt the butter in a pan, then take off and add the sugar. Stir until dissolved and add the ground almonds, beaten eggs and lemon juice. Pour into the pastry base.

Sprinkle over the flaked almonds and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes (watch the pastry as it may burn over this time). Serve warm with ice-cream or whipped double cream. Or served cold – still yum!

 

 

*Ahem. About to go out of date? Gone out of date several months ago. Ah well, Sandy and I lived to tell the tale, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

**Sometimes anarchy ensues as a result of this culinary disobedience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marital Bliss in 30 Minutes

Today, with just under 11 weeks to go till I wed, I am going to share with you the secret of making a man happy…
[If you would like this in more detail, please purchase my ebook, where for a mere £79.99, you can discover the key to long-lasting marital happiness. Guaranteed. Hurry. This is a limited offer.]*
So, drum roll… It is, ta dah, the following recipe. Create, present to your man, enjoy happiness in excess quantities**.

Potato and Bacon Bake (serves 2)
500g new potatoes, sliced finely
300ml double cream
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Dried thyme (tsp)
125g lardons
60g Edam cheese, grated
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Put the potatoes into a heavy based saucepan with the cream and the thyme. Lightly crush the garlic and add to the pan. Bring to the boil slightly and then turn the heat to the lowest. Cook gently for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop sticking.
Fry the lardons in a non stick pan until lightly browned. Add to the potato mix and add salt and pepper to taste. Tip the whole lot into an oven-proof dish, top with the grated Edam and cook in the oven for 25 minutes. Serve with green beans and salad.
*Reader, I mock. Sorry, you will have to forgo the wisdom of moi.
**Erm, do not feed this to anyone on a regular basis. It’s possibly not the healthiest of choices…

The World’s Top 10 Best Ever Bridezilla Behaviours

Reblogged from The Worlds top 10 of Anything and Everything!!! :

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Today is Sunday which means it is guest post day! Today's post is from 'Emma' and I hope you enjoy it and show it as much love as you do my own top 10's. If you are interested in doing the same please drop me a E-Mail: turtle4578588@gmail.com

Take it away Emma....

Read more… 829 more words

The world of weddings can become a little bit, diva-ish shall we say. Anyway, I blogged about Bridezillas at Russell's excellent top ten site (for the cat lovers among you, look out for the Caturday posts)...

Oops! Pounds lighter and Skin Still Shiny

Is there a word for skincare/foundation addiction? If there is, it describes moi.

[Sucker probably covers it; along with marketeer's dream].

So a weekend away in Newcastle (our last as a non-married couple) and in the spirit of compromise – me: what do you want to do now? Wander round department stores with me? No? Ok, here’s a tenner take yourself and your newspaper off to the pub – I found myself at the Laura Mercier counter of Fenwick’s nodding vigorously as the salesgirl extolled the benefits of her products.

Ahem. Several pounds lighter off* (and darn it, money ones not fat ones) I skipped away with my little bag of purchases. I was excited. ‘Ooh, this product will give me flawless skin and a matte finish which lasts all day! Hoorah!’

Oh reader, alas… One day and six hours of foundation wear later I am shiny. Not the nice glow-y thing, but a bit greasy looking.

My last count of foundations/skin primers I own (most bought in the hope of long-lasting/non-shiny thing) is eight foundations and five primers. Perhaps I should open my own foundation exchange if folks can get over the slight hygiene issues?

Hmm. Am I destined to constantly seek out skincare products which promise what they can’t deliver and end up disappointed? Or is it just an impossibility – we humans are physically incapable of not being shiny-faced by the end of the day?

On the other hand, a bonus of ageing (and I believe, added wisdom aside, there may not be many) could be the drying out of skin. Give it another ten years and I may well look back fondly at my shiny skin years…

 

*In my defence dear reader, wine had been consumed. I was susceptible to sales of most things. Possibly, if I’d been a Newcastle resident, at this point I’d have bought coals.

For my lovely American readership, there is a saying ‘selling coals to Newcastle’ which is roughly the equivalent of selling ice to the Eskimos.

Ssh! Is it Getting a Bit Noisy in Here?

Oi, oi, oi! It’s getting a bit noisy in here…

I have been reading a rather excellent book of late about introverts. Introverts, y’know, we folks who prefer own own company and who never need to tell secrets so everyone else notices?!

My original wedding plan was: small family wedding followed by large party for friends. The logistics of this were such that it looked easier to combine the two and lo, the big wedding was born.

Go online and our 110 (ish, we still have not worked this out for sure) guest list looks modest. It stills seems like a terrifying amount of people to me. In the name of good manners, I talk to them all at the wedding. Flip, that’s a whole load of small talk to conjure up.

So, weddings… Surely the introvert’s nightmare? Everyone stares at you. I volunteer myself to do a speech from feminist principles. I feel obliged to talk to lots of people. We have to dance by ourselves and everyone watches.

Hmm. I appear to have chosen the extrovert’s, and not the introvert’s, ideal event. I’m hoping Susan Cain’s excellent book on being a wee quiet person in an extrovert’s world will set out some strategies to cope…

My Wedding – My Way (Totally)

According to popular rumour some women get pretty worked up about all things bridal…

Popular culture calls this Bridezilla territory and I heard one story this week that I feel compelled to share. My mum and I went mother-of-the-bride outfit shopping (personal shopper appointment at House of Fraser – do IT) and while mum changed into the 15 or so different combinations the talented personal shopper had picked out, I chatted to the lovely lady*.

It turns out she is going to a wedding this year and is to be a bridesmaid. The bride-to-be insists that her bridesmaid grows her hair so that it fits with her vision of how the bridesmaids look.

In the world of me, I view this as utterly unreasonable. And who flippin’ cares either? My mum, bless her heart, chipped in at this point with a comment about me being a very non-Bridezilla type.

Strictly speaking, I am a bit Bridezilla – if only with myself. I am frantically exercising, frantically dieting and frantically doing all kinds of extravagant skincare** things in order to make sure I look my best by May.

This self-improvement is very shallow – perhaps I should instead frantically research how to be a good spouse, the secrets of modern marriage or what I need to live a worthwhile life. (I have a feeling that the fixation with skincare, cookery programmes and my waist to hip ratio isn’t so worthwhile.)

So with this newly-reinforced ‘I am not going to be a Bridezilla’ resolution in place, my fiance and I have re-entered the minute-by-minute negotiations for what happens on our wedding day.

Me – speeches before dinner. Him – speeches after. Me – ABSOLUTELY no alcohol before the ceremony. Him – I would like a drink with my brothers beforehand. Me – so, despite our shared atheism, we do have a Catholic priest from New York coming, shall we get him to say the Selkirk Grace? Him – NO. This could be interesting…

 

 

*So, how did you get into this job? Do you love your work? Are you happy on Mondays? What happens, each season the new collection comes in do you familiarise yourself with the garments? What kind of discount do you get? You worked for the Mary Portas franchise? It wasn’t so great?

**Ahem, while in House of Fraser, I got tangled up in its beauty counters. I bought Clinique’s pore refining solutions serum and the instant pore corrector. Serum – I’ll deliver the verdict three weeks down the line. Instant corrector thingie – pretty good, but it’s never going to meet my perfectionist standards.