The last couple of weeks have been less crafty than usual. I’ve started trying to solve Cain’s Jawbone – have you heard of it? Looked at it?! It’s a real puzzler, to say the least, and it’s pulled focus in a quite extreme way.

So for today, here are some other bits from my camera roll.

I like to bake, and this no-knead bread hits the spot every time. We have a tradition of eating the first slice as soon as it’s cool enough to handle, but while it still melts the butter immediately upon spreading. The recipe suggests four hours of rising but I find I can get it to two hours if I sit the dough, in a bowl, over a pot of hot water. It’s sticky and difficult to work with but I’ve developed tried and trusted methods over the years!

For my dad’s birthday this year we went to the immersive Van Gogh experience that’s been touring in the UK. We loved it, I saw a lot of paintings I’d never seen before and the animation was done beautifully. I wanted to make a cake to match the theme. I can’t remember what cake it was, only that it was covered in chocolate ganache then hand painted with gold sunflowers.

Two holiday photos next. The first is from Amsterdam last year, and made me feel intense cultural shame – this is what Europeans think can be used as a shorthand for the UK. Bacon and beans and CHIPS! Oh dear.

The second one is much nicer, from a cafe in Bruges, also last year. They brought my tea with a little timer showing how long each kind should brew for, which was flipped over for me when the tray was served. Very sweet. You can also see my friend photographing her own plate in the background.

During the Glasgow Comedy Festival, I was appalled to find that we were right at the front of the stage for Shabaz Ali. I do not crave audience participation of any kind. Luckily both he and the support act found nothing interesting about me – possibly because my friend T drew attention by eating a bowl of aubergine curry.

Shabaz has a lot to say about poverty and wealth inequality, mainly through the medium of poking fun at the excesses of wealthy lifestyle influencers (specifically those who have the time, money and inclination to stock many varieties of flavoured/shaped/filled ice in their freezers).

And lastly a picture from a moving train, which is precisely the quality you’d expect but shows the gorgeous weather and lovely colours of the west coast of Scotland this week. I’m in Oban for work and I couldn’t have been luckier with the weather.

I hope to have made progress on one of my many wips for Monday’s post!