Guardian Girl

Today’s outfit was a goodie, I think. I felt grown-up and received some (two) compliments at work, which was nice. Unfortunately this photo in no way reflects the positive elements of the outfit. The best thing was the lovely FARHI by Nicole Farhi silk blouse, which you can’t see properly in the photo. It is pale green with bloomy, button-tab sleeves and a sailory double-breasted popper front. It was designed by Evi. Dead nice. The skirt was out of Oxfam and I even had some green shoes from Dotty P’s years ago, but cos I had to take this photo myself again, I cut off my feet again. I wonder if this has some sort of Freudian implication. I also had a flower ring I bought a while back from Accessorize, but that got hidden too because I put it on the wrong hand. Details, details.

Here’s the visuals:

Ruffles

Kerfuffles

Look at that, my legs aren’t even leaning the right way again! Heheh, I’m so rubbish at this. Where’s my stylist?

The model looks so romantic. I am imagining a guy walking into his sitting room, seeing her reclining on the sofa and thinking ‘God she’s beautiful.’

I look like a chunky-legged Cindy Sherman rip-off after a shot of Rohypnol. I am imagining a guy I met that night walking into his sitting room and going ‘Oh shit, she’s still here. And she looks like she might be trying to seduce me. How am I going to get out of this one?’

Oh, I’m sure it’s just the lighting. Umm… oh yes, dinner! For dinner I cooked apricots with honey & star anise.

Apricots with honey & star anise

Aww, bless

Something about the bottom photo makes me think of a furtive snap of a dog turd, but this dessert tasted delicious. It was really simple and satisfying to make, plus the ingredients were easy to get hold of. But a warning: it didn’t come cheap. The spices were pricey – I used a whole jar of vanilla pod. Why even sell it in a jar? Jars are for plural ingredients. And the recipe called for many apricots, and dessert wine. But I bought cat litter too, which is expensive, so might be skewing my perception of the price of the ingredients. I chucked the receipt away, obviously. On the plus side the recipe made four big portions and I could only manage one, so it has yielded several future puddings or breakfasts.

Conclusions:

• If possible, be mindful of camera angles.
• The business of wrapping food in paper and baking it is a clear winner, and it takes no time and no effort once you get the paper out of the cupboard, which is the sort of task that tends to put me off trying such ideas – totally ridiculous.
• Apricots are way nicer than I’d remembered.
• Vanilla pods cost so much money, and then you just heat them up and ultimately throw them away.