We’re planning lots of homemade Christmas presents this year so had a practice run at making chocolate truffles, with a dash of brandy. Very chocolatey, delightfully messy and unsurprisingly delicious!

MrsP's brandy truffles

We also made cinder toffee, for those of you less familiar with oldfashioned sweets basically the crunchy bit of a Crunchie! Lots of fun to make, being more science experiment than cooking; my five-year took great delight in the moment when you add bicarb to the hot sugar!

Making your own sweets is far easier than I expected, fun and the end result well worth the effort. Yum!

Turning back, he smiles.
The smile of a man safe in the knowledge that if he’d paid more attention in class
She’d be his.

Minutes later…
Answering her mobile phone,
In a suspiciously cockney tone,
‘Alright Dave, on the train, back at 10.’
Poor men.
Little did he know her French girl act was less fact, more fiction
And her diction
More Pinner than Paris.

© Zoë Porteous

2) Sometimes teenage boys refusing to get a job can be a good thing. Kid Carpet: “I don’t want to be a web designer, not even for Spider-Man.”

3) My son will only dress up on his terms. MrP however delighted us all by fully embracing his role as ‘Roy’ in our Siegfried & Roy Vegas dress up extravaganza.

Siegfried, Roy & some smokin' tigresses

4) I still fall in love too easily. Not wonky Christmas trees this time, Bobby Dazzlers. MrsP, Patron Saint of the binky. N.B. In our house this means things that are broken/wonky but charmingly adorable.

He is a pirate. We love him like one of our own.

5) Never read the ingredients list on Coffee Mate. Nuff said.

6) Good friends can make anthing fun.

7) Fairy lights in the woods are always magic.

8 ) Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were. But if you could Scroobius Pip & Dan Le Sac belong there.

9) Good poetry live is astonishing. Polar Bear. Genius.

10) Small boys & guy ropes don’t mix. But they do tangle.

11) Pear cider magically transforms into the refreshment of gods when in a field. N.B. Be warned if tried inside a pub it reveals itself as the cheap, peardropped-distilled hobojuice it truly is.

12) The pushy parent is alive & well.

13) I will never cease to be impressed by acrobats.

14) Spongebob has his own security. Fact.

15) After breeding you lose the ability to dance like a normal person. Wall-to-wall embarrassing mum dancing. Our finest hour being in the Bollywood tent to some doirty drum ‘n’ bass.

16) Exceptions can be made. Especially if you ask nicely at the children’s facepainting tent. I looked pretty.

Me & the boy - thanks to Martin Adams

17) Florence Welch almost certainly had a poster of Kate Bush on her wall growing up. And this is no bad thing.

18) Head torches are a god send in a dark portaloo.

19) You will bump into friends. Lots.

20) Mr Tumble drew a bigger crowd than, well, anyone. Toddlers dragged away screaming by bored parents. Tumblemania.

21) Marcus Brigstock is the king of dad dance. Love you Marcus. You & your cardigan.

22) Weather always sounds more extreme from inside a tent.

23) Not all clowns are evil.

24) Breakfast cooked outside rockz.

25) We’ll be going back next year. Who’s with us?!

So, what changed? Well, I advise others on blogging in my daily working life and it occured to me that having a personal blog would be a good professional exercise. Especially building it (this is why it looks a bit rubbish, trial & error).  I also often write things down and occasionally like to share them. I’ll be upfront that there is unlikely to a central theme. I know a little about a lot of things and have a great number of things I’m passionate about. I see this as a place to share thoughts, ideas, opinions and if I get really brave, some of my creative work.*

*Based on assumption anyone is going to read any of it.