Book Review: One Day by David Nicholls

I promised on Twitter I would have reviewed the last book I have read, One Day by David Nicholls so here we go, this is just an exercise in reviewing, I am not sure if I'm any good at it, but let's give this blog a little bit more substance than pictures.

From Amazon

What attracted me to reading this book was:
1) the author wrote Starter For Ten, which I haven't read, but I have seen the film, a pleasant and funny British comedy talking about a very British phenomenon: University Challenge.
2) it had good words from Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons, two of the most successful British Novelists of the past decade and a half.

So, happy to immerse in yet another novel set in familiar places, I bought it from Amazon full of expectations, and I found it at home waiting for me when I came back from my summer months in Italy.
The story is simple, two people, Dexter and Emma, from two different backgrounds, spend on night together at university, on graduation day, to be precise. From that first day together they decide to be friends and the book follows their development in life dedicating every chapter to a subsequent year, always on the 15th of July, St. Swithin day.
The idea is original, I think, and the narrative runs easy and fluid, although so full of clichés that it made me want to throw the book against my bedroom wall every other chapter: he is the rich and screwed up one, who ruins all relationships around him, sleeps around, gets drunk, bla bla, she is the sensible teacher cum struggling young adult writer, who tries to leave a mark in the lives of those around her, ends up in a boring relationship, then succeeds in publishing books, then... I have to stop here, or I will spoil the "surprise" of what happens at the end.
Except, the inevitable doesn't happen at the end, Nicholls must have thought, rightly, that the story was not that original after all and added a "twist" at the end. Well, the twist certainly left me with a hell of a bitter aftertaste, and I wish I had defenestrated the book before finding out what happens.

Overall vote: 5.5/10

Next I am reading the last chapter in the incredibly grippy Swedish crime saga Millennium: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson. It's gonna take me eons, as I own it in hardback format and I am only reading it at night before falling asleep. Not a long time when you have an 11 months old...

Back to work

Today starts my last week before going back to work. I'll be taking S to the nursery for her settling in training, tidying the flat for a more organized life, taking out the smart pants and the ballerinas, saying goodbye to postprandial naps. Maternity leave has been hard work, but amazing.

I am sad.

I need encouragement.

I was thinking of pretty notebooks:

And.....

What do you think?

Lavender biscuits

I thought today I needed to celebrate having lost a stone (7 kilos!!) in the last 6 weeks, which caused me much strive and suffering.

So, today I baked.

I had tried these only once from a friend (yes, L, you!), and coveted them since.

After extensive research on the Internet (and lots of fantasizing about food late at night), today I finally made them. And the result is superb, although I only allowed myself a quarter of a biscuit so far, but, as I write, the afternoon is still long.

Here is the recipe, adapted from a recipe by Meeester Nik.

Ingredients:

125g (4.5oz) of butter, softened
100g (3.5oz) of caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons of lavender flowers (I used dried flowers from the garden, the original uses fresh ones)
150g (5.25oz) of 00 flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoon of coarsely chopped lemon zest

Directions:

Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees C (how many F?).

Cream butter and sugar, add beaten egg until nice and fluffy. Add flour and baking powder together. Mix might look dry at first but if you use an electric whisk and or insist with elbow grease it will go fluffy and amalgamated eventually.

Last but not least, add the lavender flowers and the lemon zest. My biscuits came out very aromatic, so you can play with measures here; other recipes use only 2 teaspoons of lavender.

Spoon the mixture on baking tray the size of a golf ball leaving some space for expanding, and put in oven for 15-20 minutes.








Although I am a through and through coffee lover, I would say these complement tea better, especially if it's the Lavender Tea I buy from my favorite tea house, High Tea of Highgate.

My summer

I realised I haven't properly anything all summer. As I am still on leave, I spent June, July and August in Italy at my parents' place with little S. It was not a particularly eventful summer, but rather a nicely lazy (as much as a 7 to 10 months old allows), slow kind of time.

Here are the highlights in pictures:

Someone learned how to stand

 

 

 

 

 

U2 in Turin

Lots of eating al fresco (notice the bunting at the back, made by me, finally!!)

Master Horticulturist at on of his best (another of his best included all the veggies little S and I enjoyed of all summer)

I am sure I did something else... oh yes, reading!

One Pearl Button is in Nafplio

Ally from One Pearl Button has posted some beautiful pictures from her archaeological holidays in Nafplio, one of the prettiest towns in Greece. Her amazing photography brought back lovely memories of Greece. I haven't been in a decade now, and I miss it dearly. And I'd like to show it to Master Horticulturist and little S too...

Head over Ally's blog and make it a favourite, she posts amazing pictures and funky crafty tutorials too.

First, a mini project: lavender bags. The original idea is from Cath Kidston's latest book "Sew!"; they are easy to make, and because I cannot curve when I am machine stitching, I am sawing these by hand, which makes it a little more romantic, especially when I give them out as a present.



My next project has been a summer dress for the little one. The pattern was a free one from Burda Style, that I had to adapt and scale down, because it was for years 2 to 8, while little S is only 7 months old now.
Here she is with the finished product:

Fabric & co.

One of the reasons why I started the blog was that I was in love with dozens of craft blogs out there and I wanted to replicate what they do and experiment with crafts and challenge myself.
I am still not sure whether blogging it the thing for me: sometimes I think that the immediateness of other user content tools like Facebook or Twitter is more functional, especially when my time online is limited to a few minutes before going to bed at the moment.
On the other hand, I think this blog is helping me to keep up the challenge and produce more during my free time.

So, one of the things I'd like to talk about here is what I manage to make with fabric. I've developed a real obsession with fabric of all kinds. I don't have many still, because London is an expensive place for buying fabric, but I am occasionally away from the city and I always try and hunt down cheap and cheerful patterns.

So far, this is what I have:

- Meters:



- Fat quarters:



- Felt:



Next, I am going to show you my projects.