Typecast

I've got a week off work. A whole week with no early taxi ride to an airport, no alarms, no work emails and absolutely no plans to do anything particularly productive. So naturally, I've started it with a cold. Not just a little sniffle either. I feel rotten. Having a new puppy means that it's a bit difficult to take myself back to bed with a hot drink and a box of tissues, so I decided that the most sensible thing to do was bake a cake - a date and walnut cake, to be precise. Now, I haven't baked a proper cake for ages, so the first job was to check what ingredients I already had.  I'd already bought some dates (that's where the idea originated from), but I wasn't entirely sure what was lurking in the baking cupboard. And here's where it all went wrong. Our kitchen has one of those pull-out cupboard units with four shelves. In theory, it's a brilliant storage solution. In practice, it's where ingredients go to disappear. Nothing is particularly ...

Chris Appleton leaving last week wasn’t a surprise to me. I don’t think his following translated into enough votes to keep him in. At this stage, Strictly still feels like a popularity contest, and being someone’s favourite hairdresser isn’t necessarily enough to make you their favourite dancer. Jaime landing in the dance-off was more worrying, although it needn’t end her chances. Alesha Dixon, Abbey Clancy, Caroline Flack and Ore Oduba all survived one before winning; Ore survived two. I’m not writing her off just yet. I love that the stylists are leaning into Emma’s own style now rather than putting her in another evening dress. The very loose-fitting trouser suit was gorgeous and very her. Jojo, meanwhile, wore the only two colours that make my teeth itch when worn together: orange and pink. Tara’s verdict in the group chat was that “Only Jojo could make getting tangled up in Xmas wrapping paper look THAT good!!” She’s right. I still wouldn’t want those colours in my wardrobe. I’m a...

There's something quite lovely about having a favourite walk that you can do over and over again and never really get bored of. The short route up to the Wainwright Memorial is one of those for me and Rowena. A bit of fresh air, a decent catch-up and a brew at the top. Sometimes that's all you need. This week we'd made plans to do it on Saturday morning, but with two additional participants. Kaizer was going on his first puppy date with Hatter, Rowena's Jack Russell x Manchester Terrier.  Our two dogs had never met before but, given that their owners have been best mates for years, they're probably going to have to get used to each other. I'd already decided I wasn't going to parkrun this weekend. The Blackburn Road Runners club championship event was in Skipton and, lovely as that would have been, it was a bit too far for me this time.  I'm genuinely gutted because it means I won't complete the 12-in-12 championship I'd planned for this year. Th...

First things first: there will be NO spoilers in these posts. I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon before the results show has aired. There are confirmed spoilers, unconfirmed spoilers and people on the internet who apparently cannot survive until Sunday evening without knowing who has been eliminated. I'm definitely one of them but you might not be so, if you're reading this before the results show, you're safe here and I won't mention an elimination until the following week's post.  Of course, the reason we can have spoilers at all is because the Sunday results show still isn't live. It's filmed after Saturday night's live show, complete with pre-filmed pro group dances and impossible costume changes but the BBC continues to describe the Strictly results show as being filmed "as live" for years. It's well documented on the WTF Strictly podcast  and I'm going to continue moaning about it because it remains ridiculous. If you're...