Guardian Girl

Sunday involved making a large apple and prune cake. As I spooned a worryingly scant amount of cake mixture into a greased tin I thought I was about to create the first genuine culinary disaster of the project. It looked like a thin layer of gruel with a load of apple slices and prunes dumped indelicately on top. But 40 minutes later I opened the oven door to the most delicious smell of warm, cosy baking and a golden cake looking like a princess’s pillow (what on earth am I writing?). It tasted delicious. Even my actual genius friend Jesse who can’t have lactose ate a few slices and reassured me that she could understand why I’d scarfed down most of the damn thing before she even arrived.

Apple (and prune) pudding cake

Grapple (and swoon) for pudding cake

Dumbass caption alert.

Jesse also accompanied me trough the rat-infested alley on to my elegant street to have my photo taken against a wired-up window.

This is pretty much the worst photo I’ve ever seen of myself, and that’s really saying something given that I’m famous for producing rank portraits. My friends and I often used to go on the Crazy Mouse ride on Brighton pier, just to blow the cobwebs away and kill some time being spontaneous near the seafront, which is what you do when you live in Brighton. This one time we had particularly great fun and got off the ride whooping and high-fiving before running over to the booth to have a look at the automatic photo they take of you. There was Liv, laughing away next to Elin, who was clinging on for dear life with a big smile on her face. And then, next to them, was what can only be described as a large, brown monster that appeared to be covered in thick fur and had its mouth open in a hideous, deformed roar. That monster was me. I honestly didn’t even look like a human. I just can’t explain it. To this day the three of us rue the fact that we didn’t buy that photo on a weekly basis, but it was £7 and when you’re young you imagine this sort of opportunity will arise every day.

Turns out we weren’t far wrong: if anyone wants to buy a print of the below photo of an inflated grub, send a postal order for £7 to PO Box 101, blah blah blah.

Go, figurehead

Go, quickly, you are scaring my young family

Conclusions:

• In life, there are good times and there are bad times.
• I think this post perfectly illustrates that point.