Going green

Feel too tired today to write any new posts now I'm a Chingford commuter so like a good little Guardian reader I'm going to start recycling. This is the first ever post from 2009.

I'm going where no Fran has gone before and starting a blog. Only because all my friends have them and I feel left out. I've got a few months before my new job will start and I haven't got much money so i'll mainly be writing about staying inside the house. Those box sets won't watch themselves!

Today I got back from my Mum's birthday weekend in Edinburgh and Roast came round to make a toad in the hole. Dave was already here when I returned home so we had a cuddle and some Scottish shortbread. Careful not to get crumbs on Jim's freshly cleaned bedroom (this is where we all sit in my flat as we don't have a sitting room).

The four of us meandered through Shoreditch park to the Co-op and got toad in the hole ingredients, mince pies and brandy cream. Roasty really likes doing the cooking so he did most of it, I was in charge of the carrots and the other boys started on X Factor.


Toad in the Hole. Prick the sausages and pop them in an oven dish with a tbls of oil. Put in the oven for 10 mins at gas mark 4. Crack 2 large/3 med eggs into a measuring jug. Take note of how much they take up in the jug then put the eggs into another bowl. Then measure out the same amount of flour and add to the egg bowl. Then the same amount of milk and add that. Whisk. Pour mixture on top of sausages (the oil in the dish must be hot). Half an hour cooking. We made gravy, sticky bottomed carrots from Jamie Oliver's how to cook book and did some broccoli to go with it. Mmmmm.

Everybody really enjoyed it. I'm going to have to wash my new heat tech leggings after all that spilling.
We then watched x factor, I'm a Celebrity and the Osborne thing all cuddled up together. Had to end when Jim made us watch the football. Bye for now. Sweet slumber angels xxxxxx

Ham S(hock)

So I know I live around murder mile. I turn my pillowed ear away from sirens. When Big Ted's limb comes off in my hand in the middle of the night I chalk it up to geography and sleep on. I carry on living my Waitrosey life amid the meat is murder of Ridley Road.

I just wasn't expecting to find this tossed into my garden. Or to come home from leaving it snoozing on my lawn and find it had moved to haunt another side of the garden! I was half expecting it to be tapping on my bedroom door that night after dragging its nibbled haunch up the rapidly not cream stairs.

Luckily I wasn't alone with it for long as I had ten people coming round for dinner.

"Come in. May I take your stylish coats? Collectively they look worth more than the entire contents of the market stalls down the road". Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Whoops tongue, "Sorry Roast. Come through. Have a drink. Now, come and look at my centre piece in the garden." "Oh." "You don't even see that in Croyden", squeaked Bob. "That isn't what we're having for dinner is it?" And so it went.

No, I'd gone for a subtler flavour of meat that night with sausages roasted on a tightly packed bed of cherry tomatoes, handfuls of rosemary, thyme, and oregano, and lashings of balsamic vinegar and wine. Soaking through mash potato and mopped up with crusty bread.

Unforch we don't have any chairs or tables left to sit on as Alex moved out about ten months ago leaving me wailing on one sofa cushion in a three story desert of smudged cream.

So we made a fort. Very Enid Blyton. And suitably, that kids, is the final page of 'The Adventure of Charterhouse Road'. It's been lovely having you round.

THE END

Night MARE to get there Street.

Not really. I can't talk. I don't even have a home. And it was only 20 minutes walk from Dolly Day care ston. It's obviously time to leave the sanitised sceneland of Charterhouse and suck it up in a place where Harrie's friend saw someone stabbed at 11 am, and I personally was asked roughly for 50 pence for sweets by a tramp. As if mate. I told you, I don't have a home either. But if I did round here it would be twice the space of Islington, at half the cost. With exposed brick and wooden floors throughout.

So Mark and I oiled on our Shackleton jackets and made the short scenic journey to Alex and Tom's new super apartment just off Mare Street. It was a beautiful evening with beautiful food, delightful company, and the amount of wine that I'd forgotten

Alex can put away without forgetting the whole evening like me and only being able to piece it together from blurred phone photos and ten status likes on facebook.

I'd be careful I don't get too comfortable boys. Unlike Oates

I may not be some time getting back. Yes, this photo is your new bedroom.

Spring into my mouth please, little egg!

What I love about Spring is how unguarded it is. It just comes out. The audacious yellow of a daffodil, the unashamed splurge of a sow giving birth to slippery piglets, the exuberant "we just have to gambol RIGHT NOW" of lambs.

So I was in the David Hockney exhibition this weekend (fifth time- just like Spring I don't stop coming).

And my fingers started surreptitiously to stroke a cream egg nestled in my trench coat pocket. I walked through the second room, mind starting to wonder forward from the current set of retrospectives, to the prospect of cream egg that no doubt would befall me. I imagined how strong it would taste. How sweet. I was pretty sure I could smell it. Faintly as a crocus. But no less distinct.

As we came to the third room.. Yes, we. I had company. Besides the whole of a packed Saturday morning RA exhibition. As we came to the third room, the thought of a creme egg about to give birth to flavour became unbearable. I couldn't deny myself. I held up my large blue leather clutch ducking behind it, sank my teeth in. Eurgh, foil. Never mind. It was glorious. Spring had sprung!

Some people gave me a glance. Hmm, maybe they can tell. I'll pretend to look at the art. Oh, it's got a little too soft in my hot fingers now. Before I knew it it was everywhere. In my hair, on the paintings, in other people's hair. Spring had indeed come to the Royal Academy (twenty twelve). What shall I do???

In it went to the clutch. A few finger licks and I was restored. Shame about the inside of my bag. You could dip soldiers in that now!

You make me sick

Quite frankly, sometimes I do. I can't help it. I just eat too much for my washboard abs to cope with. Just like that Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton film, something's gotta give.

So I had had a lovely lunch at Granny's in the countryside. Finished off with a small glass of red wine, and a bowl of chocolate roulade and double cream. Feeling utterly content I got into my car to make the 1.5 hr drive to my other Granny's. Who would have thought someone pretending so heavily to be in her 80s could ever do something like what happened next?

Ten minutes down the road I felt a little cough tickling my throat. Oh no. Not a cough. Hello roulade. Thought I'd left you in Great Maplestead village, not sitting

down my cream wool jumper and ice white jeans for the next hour on the motorway. Lucky my short term memory is abysmal so once I'd started planning what ice cream flavours my wedding buffet will serve* I forgot all about it.

*Not imminent. Remember my most recent boyfriend believed in conspiracy theories.

We've (bisc)Quit

After being shut in the basement of a so called workplace for the last ten months it's no wonder my puns are as shaky as my restraint damaged legs. I've been as abused as a binger's throat.

So to try and wipe this from my mind I traversed to Epping Forest with my very sweet colleague to set the world to rights, after eating all the biscuits and snacks her Mum had made/bought that week. I think I left the jammy dodgers and a chocolate covered brazil nut.

The cheesecake is made with ricotta and pine nuts and crumbly bits. I think it might be Russian in origin. Who knows? Both latter sentences may be entirely incorrect. Sometimes it's all my tongue can do to discern between sugar and something that I would spit out as it doesn't contain sugar.

Self Harmlloumi

Last night I was lying in bed listening to Alex and Tom moving out, feeling utterly miserable. So much in pain from the anxiety of it. Hmm. What can I do to release this pain? This is probably when people turn to self harm I pondered to myself, but I'm too lazy to even get up and find an instrument.

Could food help me find an outlet for my emotions? I knew I had some halloumi downstairs left over from dinner with Eleanor earlier in the evening. The saltiness would be a an emotional explosion on my tongue.. But still, too lazy to cheese self harm as I would need to go downstairs..

Luckily at that minute Jess came back from class and had brought me an easter egg to soften the blow. Right to my bed. What a good nurse. If only I could use that method when my anorexic patients want to cut themselves. I guess no takers?

We're finishing our chocolate now whilst silently screaming at screechy women viewing our house. Yes, it has got great storage space. Yes, the garden will be lovely in Summer. NOW TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF OUR CREAM CARPET!