Category: Manchester
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8 great restaurants in Manchester
Not everyone is familiar with Manchester. Dear reader, I am your guide so please pull up a chair. Manchester has been my home on and off for the last eight years; we have a fickle relationship where I determinedly leave for pastures elsewhere and then she beckons her finger like a beguiling temptress and I…
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The Wedding Cake Diaries II
And with that, it’s all over. I suddenly understand how it must feel the day after your wedding. You’ve worn the dress, the speeches have been made, and most importantly, the cake has been cut. A year and a half of planning and nervous excitement culminated this weekend with over one hundred somewhat drunk, happy…
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The Wedding Cake Diaries
Amidst all the cookies, trifles and fun frolics in the kitchen, every now and then you face a challenge that takes you outside your comfort zone and you turn on the oven with a flutter of trepidation. Dear reader, this week was one of those times. Last year my friend Joelle got engaged. Over an…
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A week of food and love
It is mainly upon reflection when you realise how greedy you are. In the moment, you’re hungry and there’s not a lot you can do to resist, even if you only ate breakfast an hour before. When you eventually think back and you become aware how much time was dominated by food and consuming said…
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Time out
Apologies, I’m aware this post is a little ahead of schedule. The photo of a Christmas tree, although an offering of good cheer, may not be welcome yet as, yes, I’m aware it is still November. Christmas is the last celebration of the year, so someone please tell me where the year went? That flighty…
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A walk in the sun
A long-lasting impulse of mine, which may be shared by you too, dear reader, is to spend a bank holiday enjoying a hearty walk – inhaling fresh air, soaking up much needed vitamin D and topping up my incredible tan (think Edward Cullen) – before rewarding myself with a slap-up pub lunch because all that…
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Rocky road & salted caramel filled chocolate cupcakes
It was Calum’s birthday (or as he liked to remind me, his ‘special day’). Presents, cards, birthday activities were incidental; my focus was, of course, his cake. Last year I made a large Victoria sponge with white fondant icing, bursting with jam and cream, and neatly decorated with Smarties. We polished off a couple of…
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Spring clean
Spring is here and along with it steady downpours, heavy clouds which drift lethargically carrying their immense weight across the sky, beautiful sunsets, and the ongoing roar of cars around and around the roundabout (christened ‘The Roundabout of Death’) on which I live. In a hotblooded display of manliness Calum ripped down the bent and dusty metal…
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Bread and cake
I love these kind of days. The great bowl of sky is bright peacock blue and clear all the way across from one sky scrapper to the other. Only thin white streaks scud across as planes drift soundlessly from one destination to another. It is warm, not uncanny for this time of year but maybe…
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Hispi: The life of a chef
I’ve seen a selection of interesting jobs in my adult life. After working at a cookware shop I interned at StudioCanal and was a bit too open revealing my love for Benedict Cumberbatch to a room full of laughing office workers, before I moved on to become a personal assistant to a film director. I…