New notebook anxiety

My super-galactic travelling friends, 

If you're anything like me, when you see a cute notebook while out and about you'll want to (and often do!) buy it.

If you do end up buying it, you'll usually be asking yourself that dreaded question...well, now what do I do with it?

Weekly photo dump 24th-30th August 2026

Super-galactic travelling friends,

It's been a bit of a quiet week for me due to the weather for a lot of it being pretty miserable, but still managed to get out the house a couple times, plus ate some delicious food from the comfort of our home while the rain came down. So with that, let's get this week's photo dump started!

Can you learn to love coriander?

Fellow super-galactic travellers,

We all have foods we're not a fan of, but may from time to time retry them on the off chance that maybe you were wrong, and liquorice is in fact a delicious treat that you've finally come to appreciate (spoiler, it will always taste terrible!)

Over the years I've learnt to appreciate lots of foods that I previously wasn't a fan of, and every time it opens the culinary world up just a little bit more for me. There are however, some things my palette still refuses to enjoy. Some of them are pretty easy to avoid, but there's one that's often hard to escape from...coriander.

Coriander (or cilantro) is very much one of those love it or hate it herbs, and for me it's always been on my hate list. Anytime I eat something with the scourge of a leaf hidden within it, my joy from that meal soon turns to sadness, and I have to hope after pulling it all out it hasn't imparted too much of its flavour onto the other ingredients around it, so I can somewhat enjoy the rest of my meal.

But you know what? I'm tired of coriander ruining my food!!! I want to eat a pho and not have to take out all the coriander! I want to enjoy a salsa at a restaurant that has hidden coriander in it rather than having to leave it on the side! I refuse to let coriander dictate what I can and can't eat any more!

The question is though, is it even possible to go from hating coriander, to liking it (or at least tolerating it)? I think it might be...

Creepy crochet-intestine wind spinner

Dear super-galactic travelling friends,

earlier in the year I made myself a wind spinner, and enjoyed making it so much I wanted to make a bunch of them! And guess what happened? That's right, I haven't made a single one since...

I'm correcting that now though as this last week I've been working on a new wind spinner, and not just any wind spinner, but an intestine themed one!

Charity shop meals-Czech Cuisine

Super-galactic travelling friends, 

A couple weeks back I spotted a Czech cookbook that was written back in 1985, and is packed full of traditional recipes. I of course immediately snatched it up! Both my partner and I love the types of recipes it has inside, so I was excited to review something from it.

Winning Wednesdays-free competition fun

 

Super-galactic travelling friends,

this week I've started up an old hobby of mine, entering free competitions!

Refurbished Simba mattress fail

Super-galactic travellers,

I'm afraid today's blog post is a bit of a moan, but it's for, I feel, a good reason... 

Amityville Kitchen

My super-galactic travelling friends,

This year seems to have been a bumper crop for flies, and mixed with the fact it's been so hot (which I'm guessing is the reason for all the flies) we've had to have windows open, and it's been horrible! Every time a door or a window is opened, flies have somehow managed to find their way in (although I have a theory about flies and quantum tunnelling, but that's for another time...)

I try and keep windows open as little as possible because of this, while my partner likes to keep all the windows and back door wide open as often as possible. All these reasons above meant that, when I discovered above average amount of flies on our kitchen windows one afternoon, I just assumed they came in the day before, and so went about shooing them out...I soon realised though that I was horribly wrong, and the flies were actually coming

Weekly photo dump 17th-23rd August 2026

Super-galactic travelling friends,

It's Sunday, which means it's time to share a few of this week's memories in the form of photo collages...let's begin!

Why doesn't this flip phone exist?

Super-galactic travelling friends, 

While I love my current phone (Google pixel 6) I've had it for a while, and so the battery isn't what it used to be, and tech gets outdated fast, so I know at some point I'll have to replace it. The issue? The phone I want doesn't exist!

My favourite phone I've ever owned was a Sony Ericsson flip phone 20ish years ago, and while that phone wouldn't fit my current needs any more, I would like to own a flip phone once again.

While researching flip phones I've come across two type, the old fashioned kind, or the ones that are a full screen that can fold.

But the things is, I don't want either of those! The classic style flip phone is too old fashioned with its tiny top screen and physical buttons on the bottom, and the other style, well I've seen horror stories about the screens breaking making the phone useless, and for how pricey they are, that's a no from me...

So what is it I want? Well I decided to make a (very rough) mock up exactly what I'm looking for

Trying out the crochet bobble stitch-alien in a UFO

Super-galactic travellers,

I've been teaching myself different crochet skills recently, and one that looked really fun was the bobble stitch.

After practising the bobble stitch with the help of some how to videos, I went about making my first pattern to crochet up,

and after a few hours this is what the end result looked like.

My camera really didn't like taking a photo of this green...

And honestly? I was pretty disappointed with how it came out...but that was down to my design not being very good.

Not to be dissuaded, I went back to the drawing board to make my original design a bit more exciting. After some editing, and many hours of crocheting, this is how my little alien in a UFO version 2.0 came out:

Charity shop meals-cooking from Classics of the American Midwest

Dear super-galactic travellers,

it's time for another charity shop meal, and boy do I have an interesting recipe to review for you today!

When I was visiting my parents earlier this year I popped into town to look around some charity shops, when I came across the cookbook, Classics of the American Midwest, presented by Lancaster County Medical Auxiliary Lincoln Nebraska.

I've watched the TikToker That Midwestern Mom who makes those Minnesota salads that aren't really salads videos lots of times, so when I came across this honest to goodness classic style Midwestern cookbook, there was no way I was leaving it behind.

Because I've always been intrigued to try a Midwestern salad, I decided to go for one of the savoury salads. After a quick browse I came across the hot chicken 'salad' recipe, which had one of the most interesting collection on ingredients I'd ever seen!

If they stop selling this alcohol free beer I will do a big cry

 

Fellow super-galactic travellers,

Last year I vowed to cut down on drinking, and so far so good. I'll have the occasional beer or couple glasses of lower alcohol wine, but I haven't gotten drunk (or close to it) since I decided to cut way down last April, yay me!

I always drank the occasional alcohol free drinks before, but since I cut down so much it's become my main thing to drink when in the mood for some booze. Some have been pretty terrible, while others I've discovered are even better than some regular beers. One of the more unusual favourites of mine though are, I feel, possibly teetering on the edge of disappearing from the UK forever.

Charity shop meals-cooking from A New Style Of Cooking by Anton Mosimann

Hello once again super-galactic travellers, and welcome to a new series I'm going to call, charity shop meals, where I review recipes I try from vintage cookbooks!

A few years back I started collecting recipe books I thought were interesting. I have a few from regular shops, but most are from charity shops.

We've cooked from some of the shop bought books but we've not really done a lot with the charity shops ones, so last week my partner proposed we start cooking with them more, starting this week!

My partner was the first to choose a recipe, and decided to pick one from A New Style Of Cooking by Anton Mosimann.

I bought this cookbook a couple months back as I found it interesting to see recipes that were seen as fancy and modern at the time, but when you look back at them now they come across as pretty old fashioned.

The recipe he ended up picking at random was poached sole fillets with smoked salmon sauce (filets de sole a l'ecossaise.)

We love white fish, smoked salmon, and creamy sauces, so what's not to love eh! My partner wanted to try and plate it as closely as possible as the image example. He wanted to try and plate it as close to the image in the book as possible, and this was the result!

National Lottery set for life win lose tally update two

Super-galactic travellers,

it's once again time to look at the current tally to see if I'm up, down, or breaking even on playing the national lottery this month.

Last week I stuck to the two set for life draws only and didn't end up buying any scratchcards, and

Weekly photo dump 10th-16th August 2026

Super-galactic travellers, 

Another week, another bunch of photos on my phone excitedly waiting to be shared, so lets get on with this!

The day of the collective panic attack

Dear super-galactic travelling friends, 

Yesterday evening my partner and I were at a friend's Birthday party enjoying some food, having good convos, when suddenly alarms started going off. At first we thought it was the fire alarm for the flat where our friend lives, but then we realised...it was an emergency alert on our phones.

In that moment the nation as a whole grabbed their phones, hearts racing, wondering if this was it, and nukes were about to start raining down on us...

Looking through stuff at other stuff at Arundel castle

 Super-galactic travelling friends,

Yesterday my partner and I went to Arundel castle for the day, and had a lovely time!

I took a lot of photos, so I thought it would be fun to find a theme within some of them and share those photos, and save the rest for my weekly photo dump.

After looking through them all, I decided to go for the theme of looking through stuff at other stuff. So without further ado, here's our day at Arundel looking through stuff! 

Enjoying the eclipse

 

Dear super-galactic travellers,

As you may know, yesterday there was an eclipse! I of course did not plan ahead, and so on the day of I Blue Peter'ed an eclipse viewer together using a toilet roll tube, paper, and some foil...

bland joys

 

Dear super-galactic travellers,

I've been thinking about the small, bland, daily type stuff that bring me joy, because we can't all have grand adventures on the daily to make us happy due to money, lack of time, being an introvert etc.

So I'm making a list here of seemingly dull things that brings me happiness, so if I'm ever having a down day I can look at this list and find something to do on it to lift my mood. It's also going to be an ongoing list, so every time I think/do one I'll be adding it to the list, so come back from time to time to see what's new. Who knows, maybe some of these will bring you a wee glimmer of joy when you do them too!

Attempting to learn a language

 Hello fellow super-galactic travellers,

I've always been really...really bad at learning languages. However, this year I finally learnt how to crochet after trying on and off for probably twentyish years (yes it took me that long, don't judge!), and it's given me a new confidence to say hey, if I can learn to do that after so long, what else can I learn that I've always struggled with? And so I've gone with languages.

There are so many languages I would love to learn, but in the end I decided to go for German for the following reasons:

Failing at winning the lottery, the tally begins

My super-galactic travelling friends,

I thought it would be interesting to start keeping a log of my wins and losses when I play the lottery or get a scratchcard, and put those results on my blog.

Weekly photo dump 2nd-9th August 2026

 

Hello fellow super-galactic travellers,

I thought I'd do a weekly photo dump of photos I've taken but not used in any of my posts rather than letting them waste away on my phone never to be looked at again, because I took them, so why not do something with them!

Packages were not meant to fly

 

Dear super-galactic travellers, 

Most of the time our deliveries are brought to the front door, but sometimes...

they decide to chuck it over our high back garden fence/gate. We've had things like a Kindle and a computer monitor thrown over it, and other times paper items like books, which have then sat out in the rain because we didn't know an item had been delivered (we have a camera doorbell at the front, so if something’s delivered and they don't tell us, at least we know it's there!)

And so, after this last item that was thrown over our fence (it was a box of beers. Luckily they didn’t end up bursting...) I wrote a little poem to the small percentage of delivery people who don't treat the items they're in charge of with the care they should...

The sad stuffies Of IKEA

Fellow super-galactic travellers,

I was perusing IKEA with my partner yesterday, when I came across what I shall be naming, the sad stuffies of IKEA!

flutter right on by thanks!

 

Dear super-galactic travellers, I need to tell you something...

I used to love butterflies. I enjoyed watching them colourfully flutter around the garden, exploring the flowers to the gentle buzzing of bees...but to be quite honest with you, I just don't trust butterflies any more.

'What no, why, they're so pretty!' I hear you cry.

It all started a week or so ago *add a wavy going back in time effect here in post*

Yoghurty recipes, the ongoing post

 

Hello super-galactic travellers!

Recently I have discovered the joy that is plain yoghurt.

 

By itself it's not great,

'my blandness is my strength, not my weakness!'

but boy is it a fantastic ingredient to have in the fridge at all times!

Filet (o-fish) crochet

 

Fellow super-galactic travellers,

I've finally learnt how to filet crochet...well kinda anyway...

I thought it would be pretty easy to learn the basics, but every flipping tutorial gave different advice on what to do, so eventually thought sod it, I'll go for (boring time!) 3Ch per box with a Ch two skip two method, and this is the result

Take two 🎬

 

So yeah...I started this blog a while ago and guess what...I stopped posting on it yay, how predictable of me 😮‍💨

However usually I'd just abandon a blog once I'd stopped posting on it and start a fresh one, but nope, sorry, not doing that, I refuse!