Flaming Nora

Every Tuesday lunchtime for the last five years I’ve had a slot in my diary that can not be moved. Under no circumstances am I available for lunch with colleagues, a trip to the shops or a sandwich in the park. It’s more than a weekly treat to myself, as the Tuesday slot that can’t be moved is the rock on which the balance of my life depends. It’s my weekly yoga class. Those of you reading this who do yoga may be nodding your head in agreement. Those who don’t may be wondering why I’m waffling on about an exercise class. Well, read on and find out why doing yoga is more than just exercise. It might just change your life. No matter how long you’ve been doing yoga, it’s still called practising, the belief being that you can only progress and get better. I love doing yoga because it’s non-competitive, relaxing, gentle and fun. Uh-oh hang on, I think I’ve just described myself! I know it sounds like a cliché but when I first moved to London in 2001 life did become more stressful because of...

“They’re for everyone” said Lily Allen , interviewed on telly about her new frock range for New Look . “Young, fat, thin, tall, everyone will look good in these”. Yeah, right. And did she say they’d suit, um, anyone over 35? Did the over 40s get a mention? No, we frocking well didn’t. It’s not Lily Allen I’ve got a gripe with, I quite like the way she looks and if I was her age I’d probably be bopping around in plimsolls and a dress too. I even think I did. And it’s not the other celeb range of clothes from Madonna, Kylie and Kate Moss I’m moaning about either, it’s the lack of decent high street clothes for women of a certain age. Ok, when I rant about clothes for women of a certain age, I do of course mean clothes for me. I’m only just over 40, yet I’m starting to wonder what to wear and where to buy it. My staples are bought from Next and M&S but please don’t tell me it’s only a matter of time and I'll be looking at polyester and nylon tops in BHS. Save me from the vision o...

I love beer, me. Mind you, I won’t say no to a glass of chilled white wine or a deep and sensuous red either. But when it comes a choice of drinks in a pub and that choice is between fizzy over-priced lager with an after-taste of gun metal, or some flowery, fruity real ale, I’ll go for a glass of proper beer every time. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) do their best to promote beer as a decent drink for us ladies but the image of the organisation is still, I’m sad to say, that of beer bellied fat men wearing sandals and smoking a pipe. Well, I can assure you dear reader that I’m neither fat nor a fella and I’m not wearing sandals today. As for the pipe, that only comes out on a weekend. So, where to start if you’re a beer virgin and you want to give it a go in a pub? Bars and pubs selling real ale offer a confusing array of beers with names that might as well be Ye Olde Sheepdip, Bathplug Liquor and so on and it’s hard to know what to try. My rule of thumb, and beer experts up and do...

Oh, don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same. What's a girl to do when she has a dream in which she and her fella win the lottery and the next morning she can remember - vividly - five of the six winning numbers in her dream? I put the lottery ticket on with the five numbers I remembered and another one I didn't and we waited. We sat and looked at the lottery ticket all day Saturday and waited. Well, it was raining outside and we didn't have anything else to do. I planned to spend, spend, spend just like this woman did. And then the draw was on telly and the numbers were up. Did we win? Did we heck. Did we get any numbers? Yes, one.

If he'd lived, Sid Vicious would have been 50 this year. Marc Almond and Siouxsie both turn 50 this year. How? When did that happen? Does that mean I'm no longer 17?

I loved Big Brother. I've watched it every year since it started and this year I'm giving it a miss. It's on telly now if I wanted to watch it, but I don't. Oh ok, I do, but I won't. Every year it's got worse, more outrageous, more desperate for ratings. I defended it to the end against those who criticised it... until I could no longer watch it myself. Last year I decided that nothing so bad was worth an hour of my life every night for the whole summer, so that's it. I'm not watching it this year. I can do this, I really can. I can go cold turkey on Big Brother. I just need to be brave, breathe deeply and relax, two, three, four.

The Royal Festival Hall has had a make-over and I'm looking forward, very much, to seeing it in all its glory. I like the building a lot. It was the first public space I felt comfortable in when I first moved to London. After learning how to air-kiss and discovering the niceties of living in London were a lot more superficial than those back up north, sitting down to enjoy an egg and cress sandwich lunch while working at a woman's mag on the South Bank somehow seemed to put things in perspective. Not every place in London is up its own backside, and the Royal Festival Hall most definitely isn't. I hope they haven't changed it too much.

By popular demand, here's the recipe for Green & Black's Rich Stout Cake. It's on page 85 of Green & Black's Chocolate Recipes book but there's no picture of it in the book or one I can post as the cake has all been eaten in our house. Notes (in brackets) in the recipe are my own to you, fellow cake baker. It's a gloriously rich, moist cake that isn't over sweet because of the Guinness. 225g (8 oz) butter, softened 350g (12 oz) soft dark brown sugar 4 eggs, beaten 225g (8 oz) plain flour half a teaspoon baking powder 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda 400ml (14 fl oz) Guinness or stout (allow the head to settle before using - very important) 100g (3.5 oz) cocoa powder 150g (5 oz) dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, grated 1. Preheat oven to 180C / 350F / gas mark 4 2. Butter and line a DEEP 9" cake tin with greasproof paper (such a faff but worth doing) 3. Cream butter and sugar and gradually add beaten eggs. (Never worry if you curdle, you ...

The chocolate and Guinness cake was an unqualified success. Why is it I can bake very well indeed - but can't cook? I'll get around to posting up the recipe soon but it came from the Green & Blacks chocolate recipe book which I highly recommend. And for fans of The Sound of Music , seeing the London stage show is a must. I've loved the film since I was a little girl when I was bought the original soundtrack on LP and taken to the flicks to see Julie Andrews many, many times, with my grandma. Aoife, the Irish Maria from the telly show, did a sterling job of being Connie Fisher doing Maria, but the Mother Superior wasn't a patch on the one in the film.

This year's visit to Chelsea Flower Show was my 6th in a row and as always, there were many things that provided inspiration for our own garden at home. The sun was out, the sky was blue and it all got a little rock n roll with an Iggy Pop garden called Lust for Life . It didn't win a million in prizes but it did get a silver medal and I loved the t-shirts that the girls in the garden were wearing. At Chelsea, any time is Pimms o'clock for the posh folk while those of us who know what a cyncil hice is take our own sandwiches and sit and listen to the band in the park.

Off work for a week and a bit while blokey's mum comes to stay this weekend. It's a week spent being tourists in London and taking in our annual visit to the Chelsea Flower Show (picture here is from last years when the heavens opened and we all got wet). We'll also go to to see The Sound of Music which will need to be good to beat off competition from last year's cracking Billy Elliott. I'm planning on baking a chocolate and Guinness cake and chicken pie for dinner on Sunday. And after she leaves and we have the house back to ourselves and a long Bank Holiday weekend to enjoy, it's a trip to the Hayward to see the Antony Gormley retrospective along with going the flicks to see the Joe Strummer film.

Am I wearing rose-tinted specs of nostalgia or can anyone else remember when watching the FA Cup Final brought families and communities together round the telly? You’d get up on FA Cup Final day and there’d be women in the streets with football ribbons in their hair, flags flying from pubs and shops selling football themed treats. The telly would start at football o’clock with footage of fans boarding coaches, wearing their footy hats and shaking their rattlers. There’d be a Match of the Day FA Cup special, there’d be Grandstand on telly all day. There’d be football themed lunatic fun on every channel (was there an FA Cup It’s a Knockout?) and the day would be the biggest football event ever. 1973 is the one I remember best. I was 9 years old when Sunderland beat Leeds 1-0 and when our goal went in, my dad almost fell off his chair with delight and we could hear all the neighbours in our cul-de-sac roaring at their TV.

After winning the lottery last year , we've just blown the lot on a weekend in Brighton. Despite the fact that a gale was howling in off the sea and it poured down with rain (in the middle of May) it was still a grand time. Shame we never got around to having an ice-cream on the pier but we did have some fish and chips.

Tribe of Toffs released John Kettley is a Weatherman ( and so is Michael Fish) many, many years ago. The reason I mention this is that I saw Michael Fish yesterday on an excellent visit to Kew Gardens where the azaleas were out in force, above. You know how when you see someone in real life that you've only ever seen on the telly before, they're usually a bit smaller / taller / fatter / thinner in real life than they look on TV? Michael Fish looked posher.