what to cook?

So, I'm still half-reading a manuscript (not bad, might get bought!), but really I've been thinking for the last hour about what I'm going to eat. We're going skiing tomorrow (well, Sat morning at 4am, but that's basically tomorrow), and so I'm trying to use up everything I've got. This is:

- fresh Basil, in a half pint glass, drooping
- Carrots, slightly bendy
- Four radishes (3 - 2 - have eaten the radishes, so never mind about them)
- Two celery stalks
- possibly mice (keep seeing little whirrs of movement)
- Three peppers, one orange, one red, one yellow (they might last)
- An opened Camembert (mmmm)

I also possess a craving for comforting, not too fatty soup. The obvious soup to go for is the carrot, apple and celery soup that is obligingly sitting in my basic soup book - to be extra annoyingly perfect, it even requires a tablespoon of fresh basil. But it's cold and dark - I want something more velvety and obliging, not shouty and zingy. Am therefore going for Tom Conran's White bean and carrot soup from my posh, utterly delicious soup book, and adding celery (meh - it doesn't taste of that much anyway, if we're honest). I am therefore off to the shops and let's see how it goes...

All delicious looking so far - bubbling away...about to attempt pesto to use up the basil leaves. Hold onto your seats, people, clearly, this Thursday night's going to be a wild one... (it's actually amazing what I will do to avoid reading a manuscript)

Hello world

Happy New Year, oh blog of mine. It has been a fraught Christmas, to say the least. Tricky family issues leading directly to boyfriend's depression leading on equally directly to me drunkenly dumping him on New Year's. We're still together now, and I have apologised, he's apologised, yada yada, but it's all still rather tense, to be honest. It's not easy to forgive somebody not being there for you when you need them, especially when that person is your boyfriend, well partner really, who you have been considering buying a house with. It does raise fears for the future, considering I'm only likely to need more support, rather than less. Anyway. Think we've reached a point where either he goes to get help, or we will break up, but since I do love him very much that isn't an ultimatum, just a prediction. I can't deal with the fact that when something really bad happens, there's a chance he won't be able to be there for me. Equally, can't deal with his total inability to consider my feelings as being affected by his own. On the other hand, we still get on really well, the sex is ok, but feels like he's in total denial and like I'm making all of the emotional running. Meh.

 you are in every textured moment
 feels like I'm woven into you so the idea of
parting seems impossible
 perhaps what we made was always fragile
easily breakable and with sharp edges
bad enough to lose years of work
worse still to believe it was always flawed
all those hours of creation... not worth finishing

 Anyway, I'm currently making this: , and have been accidentally not doing work at some points on my work at home day (hence the fact I'm still going now), and it is almost unimaginably delicious so far. Am very excited indeed. I love sitting on the sofa when something is simmering. :) Also, I'm learning to code! It's this brilliant little project :. Since my publishing career is going precisely nowhere, it seemed a good idea to learn some more relevant skills than what exactly makes a good alpha hero...