I am guilty of buying fruit with the good intention of being a super human-being and eating lots of fruit every day. Most of the time this is a success but usually a lone satsuma or banana is left in the bowl, all lonely and wrinkly like a jilted Miss Havisham. Last week there were two bananas that neither myself or the drummer wanted to risk taking to work for fear of bag-smush, the inevitable disaster for soft-fruit bearing commuters.

Along came my genius plan to make banana bread. I should warn you that I am incredibly new to baking (five steps before novice), having never really had my own kitchen to make a mess of and generally turn upside down while I frantically use every available kitchen appliance. I was very excited and keen to get started so as soon as I got home from work I set to it. I followed a recipe from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/ - the ingredients used and recipe is below but you can view the original source here.

Note: best not to get engrossed in Jessica Lange’s on screen meltdown as she obviously doesn't care about your baking escapades. 

I came back into the kitchen to find my first masterpiece had risen like Frankenstein’s monster into a charcoal bread rather than the banana goodness I was hoping for. Sadly photographic evidence is not available as I channeled Bake-Off's Iain and was quick to recreate Bingate. 

The second attempt was much more successful, I shunned American Horror Story and instead kept my beady eye on the oven. I have always laughed at those people with their bums in the air on The Great British Bake-off staring at their creations and willing their baked goods to reach that optimum golden brown heavenly state. 






My judgement days are over, the only way to make a good bake is to fully commit to it, bottoms up! More baking antics to follow!

Today at 9:31 GMT (earlier if you’re further North than London) we will be able to see the eclipse. Or at least we should be able to see it if the clouds aren’t misbehaving. Using my profound Mystic Meg knowledge (and British cynicism towards weathermen) I’m going to harbour a guess that we won’t see a sausage and the hour the eclipse happens will just be like someone nudging the dimmer switch for a while.

I was twelve and enjoying the heady sensation of six blissful weeks off school during the summer of August 1999.  I waited patiently on the beach with my parents at home the last time there was an eclipse and I remember it feeling like something so magical. Everyone was crowded onto the tiny spit by the harbour, all wearing ridiculous glasses, Mums fretting over disobedient children who wanted to peek at the sun without their BBC regulation shades on and Dads with tripods hoping to record the moment the sun was hidden from us. For some daft reason I had fully expected the stars to come out when the sun disappeared. I thought nighttime would be switched on and tiny twinkling lights in the night sky would appear. Of course I was wrong, but it still remains a very happy memory as the south coast was dark for a little while and everyone was united in a shared experience of gazing up and remembering to stop for a while and take in the fresco we often take for granted.

Anyway, here’s a video of Vanessa Carlton singing while an eclipse is happening. A nice mash-up of an astronomical phenomenon and early-noughties musical magic. YOU’RE WELCOME.

I discovered Rainbow Rowell last year after picking up Fangirl. A novel that just yelled “I’m totally relatable!” I wonder why? Moving on...

After devouring Fangirl in two days I promptly went on to binge on Eleanor & Park and most recently whistled through Landline at breakneck speed.

Rainbow is a beautiful writer, delving into the domestic intricacies of everyday life and lifting them high in the air for us to marvel at, completely changing the way we see small acts and how we consider mannerisms.

It’s evident that I’m not the only one to hold Rainbow in my “most treasured authors” box as even the laziest of Google searches on her work will fling up any number of fan sites, art works inspired by her writing and corners of the internet where readers are continuing her stories beyond the last page and allowing her characters to live and breathe in multiple universes.

Her ability to encompass the inner workings of our most intimate relationships makes her novels accessible for all ages and that is something both powerful and admirable. There are definite themes of first love, friendship and ambition (and Omaha) that run like melted crayon streaks through her words, blending YA with adult fiction. I have yet to read The Attachments and at the moment I’m saving it for when I next have a book drought, I can always count on Rainbow to pull me out of reading funk.

Below are some art pieces inspired by Eleanor & Park - it makes me happy to think people are out there adding to existing works of art and making something new. I don't know who the artists are so I can't credit them, but if you do let me know and I can add them!

It’s no secret that I think Harriet Manners, aka Geek Girl is the bees knees. The creation of the marvelous Holly Smale is back again for a fourth adventure in Geek Girl: All That Glitters. After four books you might start to think that the series was waning, but no, mon petit coeur, this series is going from strength to strength. 

In book four we see Harriet learning to deal with heartbreak (for those of you yet to read Geek Girl: Picture Perfect, where the hell have you been? Keep up at the back please team!) She’s returned from New York and starting sixth form college and hoping against all the odds that her days of being a lone polar bear with limited friends and the social skills of a soggy turnip are over. 

Wouldn’t life and the job of Holly Smale be so much easier if that was the case? 

Our favorite supermodel is at odds with herself as she attempts to join new social circles and finds herself so far removed from her old self that she starts to doubt the true intentions of her new crowd. This book goes a little bit deeper than the previous stories as Harriet starts to mature and finally find her feet (not always clad in ridiculous heels.) I really don’t want to spoil it for you but I think you’ll be proud of our girl.

I loved All That Glitters not just because Harriet is the perfect blend of accident-prone cringe-athon champion and book smart/socially inept teenage fashionista but also because some of the book takes place in Marrakech, Morocco. Not Monaco. I loved Marrakech when I visited a couple of years back and Holly’s descriptions of the sights and smells took me back to Jamaa el Fna so convincingly that I had to stop myself logging on to Lastminute.com…

So there you have it friends, read All that Glitters, this series is shining bright and doesn’t look like it’s going to fade anytime soon.

(Handy tip: use one of those really comfy kneeling down type mats that people use for gardening – I didn’t and my knees are still bruised. BRUISED. The things I’ll do for a Victorian fireplace.) I’d recommend taking regular breaks when stripping the paint as it can make your head feel a little bit off-center. Air is good.

Here is a picture of the fireplace before: 

God only knows why it was white, but I could hear it screaming out to be restored, a bit like that scene in Aladdin when Genie comes out of the lamp for the first time in ages and he’s all like:

I thought if we could get as much of the paintwork off as possible, some of the original details, particularly the flowers and vines would become clearer. This took a lot of layers of Nitromors and lots of steel wool, but the progress was steady and we made good time, getting most of the white paint off the fireplace by the end of day one. The steel wool was cleaned with white spirit and an old rag was also used to keep the areas clean before adding more layers of Nitromors. It’s important not to add water as this can rust the metal (although using a damp cloth won’t hurt, white spirit helps to lift the paint). There were in fact several layers of paint underneath, predominately black, but we were determined to take it right back to the cast iron base so we could keep the surface as smooth as possible.

Some parts came away without much resistance, and other parts, particularly the intricately detailed sections had to be coated in Nitromors then left to soak for a while before going back over it with steel wool and then repeating the process. Admittedly it was tiring work but seeing the original metalwork coming through underneath was very rewarding.

Here is the fireplace back to its old roots: 

We managed to get 99.99% of the paint off and the bits that were left were minuscule and we ensured that they were rubbed down so the surface remained flat in preparation for the black grate polish to be applied.

I used a cloth dabbed in white spirit to clean the fireplace and ensure that all excess bits of dirt and paint flakes had been removed as it’s hard to get these off once the polish is applied.

Applying the black grate polish paste that I picked up from Robert Dyas was the easiest part of the process – we covered the whole fireplace in about 45 minutes and then went over it again to ensure all the nooks and crannies were covered too. We rubbed the paste onto the fireplace with a cloth but were careful not to polish it but rather leave it to dry. If you do decide you want a metallic finish you can polish the paste onto the metal and that adds a metallic shine.

Here is the finished look:

We’re very happy with it and it is a gorgeous centre-piece for our living room. So far we've had a fire burning every evening and it’s not something that is going to grow old anytime soon!