I’ve uttered 2 this week, and I’m not proud.

You know the type, she’s a heavily pregnant knitwear designer with resting bitch face, he’s an eco-architect and they’re building a traditional turf house with a glass pyramid extension on the Isle of Skye on Grand Designs. I am not these people. I don’t have twins called Helvetica and Clarenden, or a fox terrier called Smudge. I don’t plead poverty because the special windows they’re flying in from Switzerland have gone over budget, while their kitchen tap costs more than a Tesla. Tell me I’m not these people!

And breathe.

Sentence 1. “I can’t because I’m seasoning my tagine”.

Context. OK, hear me out. I bought a Moroccan tagine a few years ago in the sale. Then, I lost it. I shoved it in the back of a cupboard and couldn’t find it, so every time I’ve made one since it’s either been slow cooker, or trusty casserole dish. Well, not this weekend my friends, because I found my tagine! After doing some reading, before first use, you are supposed to “season” it. This involved soaking in cold water overnight, then letting it dry, before oiling the inside and putting it in a moderate oven for 2 hours. This all felt like ball-ache, but so determined was I that tagine was happening, I started on my seasoning journey. So a good 24 hours after I began, I had made my tagine, and began to assemble it in my newly seasoned cooking vessel. Only to find….. I had made too much tagine (it’s what I do), and it would not all fit in the sodding dish I had been poncing about with all weekend. So, it went in the trusty casserole dish, and the tagine went back in the no mans land cupboard where I’ll find it again in another 2 years…..

Sentence 2. “We’re going to the Oyster festival to see our Champagne guy”.

Context. Ok, this one is pretty much as it sounds….. In my defence…. So, we went to the Oyster festival a few years ago and amidst trying various other forms of booze on the day, there was an award winning champagne maker there, and well, it’s delicious, and the same cost as a bottle of white from your local Indian takeaway – because France! I know I’m trying to make it sound like a thrifty buy, I’m acutely aware that it isn’t, but this is special occasion only, it’s high days and holidays, and we have family staying at Xmas, as well as it being our 10th wedding anniversary in December, so we justified buying 2 cases because we can literally only buy this once a year, he doesn’t sell online and it just seems so French somehow, to have your favourite supplier for things like this. We don’t eat out often, takeaways are non existent, nights out – what are they? plus the older I get I’d rather have 2 glasses of something lovely than 10 of something that you could use to power a strimmer. This is the stuff that goes in my Great Gatsby style champagne saucers that you can only use if I trust you implicitly and you sign a damage waiver. If you’ve drunk fizz at my house and not been offered it in these glasses, then you should probably have a long hard think about how you live your life….

To counteract said champagne purchase, I did also shovel in a massive quantity of moules mariniere with frites, and washed it down with a pint of slowly congealing melted cheese left over from my husband’s Fondue Creusoise. You see, I quickly revert to type. Northern, but no longer with a love of alcohol with a colour that doesn’t exist in nature. The heart wants what the heart wants people. I may drink some of that champagne with cold risotto straight out of the serving dish again (insert core memory here) , and who is going to tell me I can’t. Life is too short to deny yourself a little of what you fancy I reckon, but I’ll get you a plastic glass… just in case.

Laters, V x