I wrote before about how difficult it was for Mr NQN and I to say “I Love You” to each other. That reminded me of a situation from back when I worked in an office. We were a typical “Office Space” company, a technology start up where very few had offices with walls and we’d find ourselves staring at neutral coloured woolly material covered partitions all day. Of course with partitions, we would hear everything that others around us were saying. Every morning I’d hear one of my buyer’s pre work rituals: checking out the scores for Arsenal and browsing various adult entertainment websites (yes really).

Click here to read the full story

I first saw this Salted Pretzel Toffee recipe on my lovely blogger friend Faith’s fabulous blog Thought 4 Food. I already have a slew of recipes of hers that I’ve bookmarked but the moment I saw this recipe I knew that I had found my Christmas Baking gift. Yes this year Christmas totally crept up on me. In fact I was fast asleep and Christmas had literally stolen into my house and screamed “BOO!” at me. It was the 17th of December and I was only just sending out my Christmas cards. For someone who always gets organised and puts the tree up on the 1st of December this was very embarrassing.

I needed to make this quickly as this was destined for my friends Gina and Teena as we were meeting up for the yearly present exchange ritual. Reading through the recipe I was surprised at how easy it was, even though there was toffee involved. There were only two paragraphs worth of instructions and I have everything to hand except for the mini pretzels so I bought these and made the whole thing in the space of 30 minutes (not including setting time).

OCD Pretzel sorting

Click here to read the full story

I didn’t quite pick the right day to make these gingerbread cookies. It was on the afternoon of my High School Reunion and I thought that it would be a good chance to take my mind off it. I had decided to go to the reunion not due in small part to the fact that two friends had contacted me and we had agreed to walk in together. I wrote last week  of my trepidation at attending my High School Reunion. For the days preceding the reunion I was indeed going back and forth on whether I’d attend and now the decision was made. I had RSVPd and I had to go.

*Eeek!*

This wasn’t a Romy and  Michelle revenge situation mind you although I have to say that the movie helped to crystallise High School Reunion anxiety perfectly. It was pretty much a normal cliquey all girls school and nothing to get too upset about. But the idea of the reunion was enough to make one a bit nervous. And whilst I thought these gingerbread cookies would take my mind off it, I didn’t realise how long they would take. By the time they were all done and dusted (literally dusted with sugar), it was several hours later standing on my feet and my legs were aching. This was a worry as I had intended to wear high heels that night.

I met my friends beforehand and we walked in. I was a little stunned. It appeared that half of the people had frozen in time and were instantly recognisable whilst others were barely recognisable and this was usually due to hair change or weight gain. Some of the skinniest, prettiest girls were much more generously proportioned and I had to look at their name tags to recognise them and others simply looked nothing like they used to.

Click here to read the full story