But why are YOU baking a pie?

I’m feeling a little apprehensive today, a tad uneasy. You’ll think I’m crazy, but I reckon I’ve every right to be concerned. You see, last night, my boyfriend made me a pie. Now, I know that I make pies all the time, and I know why I make them, but why’s he making them? I’ll make a pie to relieve stress and anger, it allows me to knead away my murderous thoughts, all the while appearing like an epic pie-making girlfriend. So, the fact that he decided to make a pie, worries me.

Perhaps men don’t make pies for the same reason women do. While women might choose to whip up a steak and ale pie, with the perfect amount of ale and the softest of steak, fighting the temptation to sprinkle a little rat poison or cover it with a bleachy egg-wash, men probably just want to see if they can do it. Do men really enjoy cooking, or do they simply want to feed their appetites and check that there really isn’t anything women can do better than them? ‘If she can make a pie, I’m sure I can.’ That’s probably why they’re such good cooks. For men, it’s not about baking to avoid prison time, it’s about being the best at everything.

Exercise and how to avoid it

Unfortunately, dry January is over for me. I cracked after a particularly difficult Friday in the comfort of knowing that I had done a good seventeen days without so much as a red wine jus, and I can now confirm that I am a much happier person off the wagon. Of course, I do feel a little bit guilty – while I wasn’t attempting to be sober to raise money, I was doing it to try to live a little healthier, if only for a month. Now, with still a week to go, not only am I drinking again, but I’m still eating as if I weren’t (I decided it were only fair to allow myself to eat copious amounts of carbs to make up for the lack of alcohol). What to do! I’ve found myself stuck in the habit of downing glasses of wine, pretending it’s because it complements my dinner – my Sainsbury’s pizza dinner. I did try the alcohol-free stuff, but my body is far too smart for that shit, it knew what I was trying to pull.

Dinner for one

I believe there is a reason we are supposed to stay living with our parents until we are married off, and it’s not to make the whole walking down the aisle and being given away by your dad thing actually mean something, it’s because it simply makes things easier when it comes to cooking. Over these past two weeks I’ve had a little taster of what it’s like to be single again, except this time, I’ve been living on my own. While the boyfriend has been working away, I’ve had to get used to having full reign of the remote control, not knowing what the football scores are and sleeping in the middle of the bed. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The worst part? I’m always cold and I’ve forgotten how to cook.

How posh is your mouse?

Could someone please tell me why, when we’re only just pulling out of the recession, the mice in my flat have a certain taste for Green & Blacks chocolate? Now we all know that Green & Black’s isn’t the cheapest of chocolate; it’s the chocolate reserved for when you want to buy someone a ‘special’ easter egg and all the Lindor ones have sold out, or what you buy when you don’t know what to get someone for their birthday and you can’t very well give them a bar of Dairy Milk. I rarely have a Green & Black’s bar of chocolate in the house, in fact, I think I’d go as far as to say I had never had one in my flat before, until Christmas Day, when I received a big old bar in my stocking. (Santa had obviously run out of ideas).

Dry January’s a hoot!

Well there you have it, another Christmas gone, another New Year’s Eve forgotten and not a sausage to show for it – not in this house anyway. So now what? What do we possibly have to look forward to? It doesn’t seem quite right to eat pigs in blankets in January and if you can find a Starbucks that hasn’t already chucked any remaining mince pies away then you’re lucky. There’s absolutely nothing to look forward to now until December. Summer? Please. Who eats stuffing in July?

I know I’m being pessimistic, but I’m not hungover, I swear. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. For some reason I have decided to join a number of other saddos for a ‘Dry January’. Not that I’m comparing myself to Tom Waits, but the more he drank the better he got, so you can expect my writing to be pretty shoddy during the next month. Shoddy and dry.

The hangover that stole Christmas

I’m no Scrooge, but suddenly I’m not looking forward to Christmas anymore. Don’t get upset, I have a perfectly valid reason – I’m sick. Not seriously sick, it’s just a simple case of man-flu, but man-flu is extremely debilitating, especially during the festive period. All anybody wants to do is drink mulled wine and eat rich food and stay up until late singing Slade and Wham and all I want to do is crawl into bed and die quickly. Mulled wine and Vicks is not a combo I’m willing to try to get used to and why should I bother eating rich food when I can’t even taste it? Stay up late? I’m having trouble staying awake now and it’s not even 9am – and no one wants to hear me sing right now. I sound like a drunk Macy Gray.

Slow trains & fast food

I apologise that I am writing this a little bleary-eyed – in fact, I’ve only got one eye open – but it’s lucky I’m even awake to post this on time. Unfortunately, fatigue is just one of the many consequences of living so far away from (yet so close to) London and having to catch a ‘slow’ train. The last train out of the city was at 12.55 last night or this morning and I just managed to catch it. Five hours later I’m pretty sure I’m sitting in the same seat I was sitting in last night, but now the ketchup smeared all over the walls, boxes of noodles and remnants of what was probably once a cheese burger are all gone and instead there are just a few breakfast bar wrappers shoved between the seats. (Breakfast bars – we’ll talk about that one another time).

Calories, who’s counting?

Alright, I admit it, I’m a calorie-counter. I know that there are roughly 96 calories in a slice of medium white bread, 36 in a teaspoon of butter, 65 in a rasher of fried bacon and 15 in a blob of ketchup, and that a bowl of muesli with full-fat milk contains about 350. Which, of course, gives me every reason to always choose a bacon sandwich over cereal – I’ll lose the extra 23 calories laughing at those left unsatisfied with their grain. A lot of what I’m about to tell you won’t make any sense to you as it barely does to me, but I’ll tell you all the same, in case it does and you want to back me up.

Get fat or get out

This morning I was sitting on the train, minding my own business (but mentally causing grievous bodily harm to anyone who touched me),  when it suddenly occurred to me that the man opposite was about to tuck into his third banana. Third! I’d already been appalled that he had deemed it okay to eat his slimey, smelly breakfast on a packed train, but to then pull out another one and then another after that? How can one banana not be enough? You’ve done your duty, you’ve made the effort to have one of your daily five, now forget about it and get yourself a bacon buttie, weirdo.

I bake so I won’t kill

You know those days you have when there’s too many people on the tube and you have to wait for a couple of trains to pass before you can fit on, only to have to stand within a stranger’s curiously pungent armpit throughout your entire journey? Or when your other half decides to stay out late after work and doesn’t ring to let you know? Or when your friend starts going on about how awful their day was without even bothering to ask you why you’ve got mascara all down your face and bloodshot eyes? These are the days when, (and I’m sure you’ll agree) we’ve all contemplated murder. Will anyone really notice they’ve gone before all signs of your DNA wash away? Would anyone ever truly suspect me, because surely I’m far too small to kill anyone? Do I have the strength to hold the pillow there long enough if they put up a fight? Don’t tell me you don’t think these things too…