Anushka did her…

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Joshila is also V…

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Andy specialises in the treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) cancers using radiotherapy, chemotherapy and various targeted and immunotherapies. He was one of the pioneers of the latest radiotherapy techniques in the UK including stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (aka SABR) and prot…

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Please note that this is different from lobular carcinoma insitu which …

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He was a cancer research scientist and qualified in medicine at St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London School of Medicine, University of London. He has a pHD in cancer science and chemotherapy and has authored well over a hundred primary research publications. Dr Crook has a special interest in breast can…

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I’m going to take a break from all social media, and that includes Substack, for August. It’s not so much that I think this matters to anyone but it does matter to ME if people think I’m not replying to their comments. I don’t like to be ignored and I imagine that also holds for others, too. But this month I am taking a break before I really need one so I won’t be engaging or replying and that’s why. Not that I don’t care but I won’t be reading. Sadly I won’t be truly Italian and be taking the whole of August off, I’m working on some quite sizeable features for the Guardian (as well as the regular columns) but hopefully I’ll have more time to do this if I’m not surfing the SM waves.

The exception to this may be if Series 13 is ready in time (we are so close!) I will post it on here for paid subscribers.

A few things to leave you with. This is a great piece about fungus on faeces (ready made title for a book if ever there was one).

And although I don’t really eat crisps my family does and in an attempt to get them to eat better crisps I bought them some Spudos. Did I sample a few? Yes I did and they are de-licious and very probably the best crisps I’ve ever tasted. Kinda dangerous to have in the house, tbh, but there you go, beats jumping out of a plane for an adrenaline rush.

I especially like them naked with no salt or flavourings but you can get flavourings and add them to make them bespoke. I’ve served them up in little bowls pre dinner parties (fancy) and people seem to love the old-school style of them. And who doesn’t love crisps? They also do crinkle cut and sticks occasionally. A very slippery, but crispy, slope.

Good morning. There is no Guardian column today as I took a break (which manifests as today, but actually the break came a few weeks ago, we work quite a few weeks in advance, sometimes months).

I am hard at work on my other columns, and two lead features coming up. Both are, at least in the research, fascinating.

This week was spent working and writing on all of the above. I had three glorious days in London which I jam packed. Of course no-one can be writing all the time so…some notes:

Beauty Pie now has a stand in Liberty so if you are a member, but like to look at things (previously it was exclusively online as it’s a member’s club thing) - especially good to sniff the perfumes.

I went to the National Gallery again, this time I had breakfast and not just coffee in the Supporter’s House. It was very mid. The avocado was a sort of mush on the sourdough, like it had been whipped in a frenzy and submitted into a spread, and everything was a bit cold. (The actual bar space was wonderfully air conditioned, but bring a jumper if you plan to spend time there as I froze after a while.)

The coffee is still very good and it’s a wonderful haven but I feel they need to up their food game. The restaurant open to the public - Muriel’s - looked a thousand times more exciting.

I spent a lot of time around Marylebone, where I went to primary school. This area ripples with memories for me and it was bittersweet as it’s coming up to my mum’s third anniversary and I miss her. The last few years were so tough on me and my husband and children that it took a while for the dust to settle and for me - us - to really see her again.

I peeked into the entry of my old primary school, now largely closed up (there used to be a big long corridor through the gate) and I could see the floor was still the same. The big windows where I used to go up the stairs after assembly and wave to my mum who waited for me (and if we went up the back stairs I’d fret that I hadn’t seen her and would she be fretting?) are now coated with a mirror finish so you can’t see in. I guess a sign of the times. The roof, where the playground is, is now fully enclosed in fence - it used to be just the sides. And the vast expanse of car park opposite, a residue of World War II’s bombing, is now luxury flats. TBF they were only built a few years ago.

Opposite all this is La Fromagerie, a deli, cheese shop and restaurant, which is dark and cool (but no air con) and there are wonderful punnets of red currants and beautiful looking breads, and of course, lots of cheeses and artisan foods. I met a friend and ate there. The menu is a bit of a challenge for someone who doesn’t eat dairy or meat but I had a very nice salad and grated carrot with chickpea chips and an iced oat flat white which is all I could have wanted.

Marylebone is replete with chi-chi shops and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it all. When I was at school they were all independent shops that really were independently owned. My friend PC’s family owed the cafe on Marylebone Lane. My friend FV lived on Garbutt Road with no inside toilet. I used to sneak down Grotto Passage to see her. It was a very different Marylebone then. But I feel incredibly at home there - like it is my home and I can’t deny I love the shops up and down there if I don’t get too political about it all.

After school we all played on the swings and see-saws at Paddington Street Gardens. I still get a real jolt when I walk through there and see the bench my mum used to sit on waiting for us (what did she do, bless her? Stare into space, order her thoughts, read Woman’s Own?). There’s the drain just outside the Gardens where my mum held my chubby 3-4 year old thighs aloft whilst I peed down the drain on the way to pick up my sister. Little moments in time.

There’s a super deli, expensive of course, called Bayley and Sage with a lovely gift/plant section in the basement which many people miss. And then I went to buy some friselli from Prezzemole e Vitale on Wigmore Street. I used to eat these as a child although we called them something else (Italians often have various names for the same thing depending on where in the country you are). I was reminded of them because when I interviewed Valter Longo for my upcoming Series 13 he mentioned he ate them for breakfast. As soon as I came home I had some dipped in my morning coffee and they instantly took me back to child hood.

A quick recommend of Manufactum which I hadn’t shopped from in years. It’s the sort of place you go to, to buy “once buy well” for certain things, and I looked at it to find a garden hose that would last more than two summers. Until my husband came home and just tightened the whatsit and it was fine. **insert shame face **

I read a fascinating article in the New Yorker about guard rails, what we call safety rails, vehicle restraint barriers or Armco barriers in the UK. They are the low, long metal barriers on the sides of certain roads. I have no idea if the problems in the US are also an issue here but it was pretty horrifying reading so do go carefully if you or a loved one has been involved in a road traffic accident.

Finally I came home to find the bread I’d made on Tuesday (it was now Friday) was still proving in the fridge so we cooked it up on Saturday and it was glorious. This is the great thing about sourdough, up to a point it improves with age.

Wishing you all a good week.

This week’s Guardian column was about a troublesome mother-in-law. I have said before, and this won’t be the last time either, that I grew up thinking it was always maternal mother in laws that were the problem. But the majority of the letters I get about mother in laws concern paternal MILs. And this isn’t, either, because the majority of people who write in are women, it’s a fairly even split.

Another preconception I had growing up was that cultural differences in couples would be due to vastly different cultures but, indeed, they are often not. I remember talking to a family member and we were lamenting that no-one told us being married to English men could bring up so many cultural differences. Just one example was that my husband couldn’t get over how often I spoke to my parents and I couldn’t get over how seldom he spoke to his. But it wasn’t just this, it was about food, hospitality, approaches to life and death. I wasn’t alone. The differences can sometimes take you by surprise, sometimes be fun and you incorporate them into your own life, and sometimes they can be deal breakers.

I chose Jason Maldonado-Page as my specialist because he comes from a Latino background and I thought he would explain the boyfriend’s POV a little more to help the reader - and he did.

He said one particular thing which really stuck out:

”What stands out from your letter is that you are writing from a cross‑cultural phase of your relationship. This is a phase where couples often compare backgrounds and try to decide what is ‘normal’. It can feel as though you are two separate islands looking at each other through binoculars. Any therapeutic aim would be to help you move toward an intercultural way of loving and living. This would be shifting from comparison to co‑creation and building a shared culture that belongs uniquely to the two of you.’

I’d never really thought that, even if there are no cultural differences, couples make this comparison and I’ve often sat across from a friend in a new relationship who has said things like “but they have to meet up every Sunday” or “their tradition is they all go to her sister’s house for Christmas” and it’s the finding the middle ground that is, after all, what relationships are all about.

My chocolate column seemed to come out a week early which is fine (I filed it early but it’s meant to come out the last Wednesday of the month). It meant I was earlier with the news that Pump Street has launched a new bar. And I do like to support Pump Street as they are my nearest, local-ish bean-to-bar chocolatiers. The star though was this Heist Nougat bar. If you like nougat you are in for a real treat. (It’s currently on waiting list but Mikey will be on it.)

I had two early morning plans today, one was to get up early and go to the bottom of the garden and just be, and the other as to hit the gym super early so I had the rest of the day to work through the to-do lists I daily give myself. The only day I really allowed myself to truly just be, was on my birthday.

And it was one of the best days ever.

But early morning is rarely a case of just getting up and doing what you want is it?

I really wouldn’t mind doing, or not doing, stuff as long as I could decide and settle to it, but my life seems to be a regular wrestle with ‘I should be doing this, I haven’t done that yet.’

I do achieve a lot every day, but what anyway is achieving?

Yesterday I had the best walk. My friend and I met up early (I am a fan of an early start) and it was all so idyllic, with people out saying good morning and people on the river that we joked it was like a promo ad to get people to live here. Then I went to the local market and bumped into another friend and bought peaches and cherries.

This week I made these soft pretzel rolls which are wonderful. And if you eat that sort of thing, they are excellent made with bacon and chilli jam.

I discovered Fauxmagerie’s plant-based cheeses. The first, and probably last, time I had plant based cheese was in the 1980s, on a shoot in Old Street and the sandwich was labelled “mock cheese” and it was memorable for being pretty awful. My friend who is vegan (I am not, but I don’t eat dairy*) recommended them and they were great, especially the blue cheese. I won’t make a habit of eating them as I prefer whole foods (the ingredients are good but it’s still a processed product) but on Monday I had some with some focaccia and it was the first time I’d had that sort of meal - bread and cheese - for nearly two years.

That felt good.

I had two hospital appointments this week. Only one needle stuck into me and I brought my own robe to an appointment which got a lot of praise from the medical staff.

I am a big fan of Shackleton so if you missed it do look at these beautiful photos.

For paid subscribers I am in post production for Series 13 - working as fast as I can, and we hope to have The Cancer Series up next month. It’s brilliant.

* I eat a bit of goat or ewe’s milk products occasionally.

Good morning. I woke up today in a froth of confusion, having stayed up late (for me) to watch, in a fit of dormiveglio, the England vs France match. When I woke up, I thought it was Monday which, for us, marks the first day of the school holidays. I love the school holidays because I don’t have to get up crashingly early but school-run routines also give me…a routine. And like a young baby, I thrive on routines (actually most of us do).

Anyway imagine my delight to then realise it’s one of my favourite days of the week: Sunday. And here we are. This week’s Guardian column (out yesterday in print, today on line) has already garnered lots of comments veering between “you did right/you did wrong”. It’s about a friend who has ghosted another friend. *

Ghosting is a relative new term. What did we used to say? I’m ignoring someone? I’ve cut someone out of my life? I’m not sure what you’re meant to do to end a friendship that has an actual end - and doesn’t just peter out. I have, in the past, written to friends who no longer seem to want to be my friend and where I’ve been genuinely unaware of why (and maybe that was the problem!) to say look your friendship does mean something to me so please let me know what I did wrong so I can try to put it right. Neither time did the person write back.

Since my cancer diagnosis I’ve realised how hard I work in certain friendships and with certain people I’ve just stopped doing that hard work and often the friendship then flounders. Which rather proved my point that I was keeping it going. My husband and I were talking the other day about this very thing, and how we’re going to put our energies into people who actually want to be our friends and make the effort and look at historic friendships and wonder why we cling onto them. It’s been liberating.

Having cancer is like having the mother of all sick notes. It gives you permission to stand up for yourself.

I’ll be writing more about this in the autumn for the Guardian.

This week has been busy. I started it at the National Gallery, a place I haven’t been for a while. After my super stressful trip to the Louvre where I remember almost none of the art, but all of the hullabub and insane queuing, the NG was wonderful. So calm even though it was busy and the art was staggering. Since I did the podcast with Pr Daisy Fancourt, about the importance of the arts in our life (not just art-art) I’ve made a really conscious effort to let the arts come into my life more. Not because I have to, but because I want to. I went round with my youngest, arm in arm, as she told me all about certain art works (she studies art) and there was no pressure, from either of us, to do anything. We didn’t need to respond to the art in a certain way, we just wandered from room to room and it was a quasi perfect day, in the way that days that are the least planned, can be.

I’m a House Member, which isn’t a cheap thing but for me was well worth doing. I added a plus one to my membership, so I could bring family and friends (the ones that are still talking to me ha ha). I love me a bit of luxe. You walk up to a very discreet door, a security man asks you for your pass, the door magically opens and then you are in this wonderful sanctuary off Trafalgar Square. There’s a bar/brasserie where you can have coffee/snacks (the cappuccino is not cheap be warned, but it is good), a fully fledged restaurant and a salon for relaxing in. And your own private entrance into the museum. It’s bliss. You can go to all the exhibitions for free and with no booking. So we went to see Zurbarán, a painter I’d never heard of who we really enjoyed and we’re going to try to get his name in, as an adjective, into our copy/essays asap so watch out for that.

A few weeks ago, at my friend Lucy and Richard’s house, Richard poured me a Mother Root drink. Now keen and interested readers - which I know is all of you - may know that I don’t really drink anything other than water. The occasional diet soda (sssh) as a sort of act of defiance. At parties I might drink - gasp - sparkling water. But otherwise it’s just water for me and whilst I’m really fine with that it can get a bit boring as everyone else is clinking and clunking their colourful drinks with ice and slices and whatnot. But Lucy suggested this drink, and so I checked the label and it’s quite low in sugar so I thought why not. Well, I LOVED it and now drink it to mark the end of my day in a full-on crystal glass and pretend I’m Beth from Yellowstone.

When I was in London for the second time this week for medical appointments I treated myself to a Botivo from Honey and Smoke (an insane £8.50 for a glass but I try to give myself a treat every time someone ‘does’ something to me medically and I was about to have a needle stuck in me so…) and I loved that too. But then when I went shopping I was lured by the special offer on another non-alcoholic drink: Pentire. Which has great reviews but I’m really not sure about it yet. It tastes a bit insipid..

What do you recommend as a low-sugar, non alcoholic, not-full-of-crap drink? I’d be keen to hear.

Talking of crap, do not do not buy this ridiculously useless hook called Stowey. When will I learn not to be taken in by things seen on Instagram? The hook is too shallow to work for anything bar a jacket hook (you cannot put a bag handle on it/in it) and tbh you can use various other, cheaper things instead. I’ve tried to get my money back (they say you can return it) but no-one answers my emails. Be warned.

We’re in post production on Series 13 which will drop in a few weeks here, first. We did the final episode with Joshila DeVille who is a specialist in exercise and oncology and she was fascinating.

These Crosta e Mollica bread sticks are insanely good. Incidentally this means ‘crust and the middle’, mollica is a word that doesn’t seem to exist in English - if you know different let me know - but means the middle of the bread, the soft bit. It’s a great word.

A few pieces you may have missed that are worth reading. This one on talking about dying - I’ve long ‘campaigned’ for more conversations around this tender, but inevitable, subject. When my parents died, because we’d talked about death easily before I knew exactly what they wanted and it was so much easier, in an already very challenging landscape: but some of the decisions had been pre-made - by them, which gave me a peace of sorts. I saw how much harder it was when my in-laws died, because they’d never talked about death with their family.

For those interested in our press - and that really should be all of us - Andy Beckett’s piece on Paul Dacre, the right wing press and the Daily Mail is fascinating and exquisitely researched. I know a few people who worked under Dacre and they’ve all said he uses the word cunt a lot. I’ve never really understood the use of this in English as an insult. Cunts give pleasure and bring forth life.

In Italian when we want to insult someone we say : cazzo. Far more apt.

*At the time of writing this was the most read thing in the whole paper, beating even the World Cup. Just goes to show how much friendship matters impact.

This week’s Guardian column was an unusual one. The core of the subject matter - someone’s sex life and marriage - was not that unusual. These things are the mainstay of an agony aunt’s mail bag. But the fact that the wife had hired an escort was unusual.

I felt a bit of reality was needed in this problem, and how to do that gently isn’t always easy and I’m not sure I always manage it. I felt it was doubtful that the escort had ‘caught feelings’ for the reader, not that she wasn’t worthy of it but I’m mindful that it’s a job to him. Some readers thought I wasn’t attentive enough to her husband’s cruel comments towards her. Fair point. But I felt the specialist, Katherine Cavallo addressed it rather beautifully putting the comments where they belonged - with the husband and him deflecting shame.

Last night everyone seemed to be watching the football and even I did for a bit. I used to watch lots of football when Dino Zoff was in the game but over the years my interest has waned, or perhaps my tolerance for tension has abated. I heard England won 2-1 against Norway when I got up this morning and before I forced myself into the gym to do a 30 min Yoga with Adriene ‘Yoga for Runners’ which was just what I needed after a big leg day yesterday - it’s a gentle yoga session. Then I did a 31 minute run, listening to my trance music and the effort required was physical but largely psychological. I think for the whole of the last ten minutes I kept saying to myself “you are strong, you are amazing, you can do this, you did chemo FFS!”.

Anyway I did it.

In the morning, usually after a long overnight fast, I don’t really like to go straight into a work out because I convince myself I will faint (this is a total fallacy and an excuse to eat and delay my work out) so I’ve discovered this amazing Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding by the wonderful Gina Burgess (whose mother suffered horrific injuries at the hands of her former partner). I’d long followed Gina’s Insta page and have made some of her things. I made the chocolate pudding late last night, without much hope, yet was amazed at how much I liked it this morning. If I make it again I might make it with more nut butter - and alternate the nut butter - less plant milk and maybe experiment with some water. I used only half the amount of maple syrup and it was fine. This may not land well with people who eat sweet things, but for me, who doesn’t, it was heavenly and a nice, light thing to have just before a work out.

I went to Terroni’s in London last week. (No link as the website doesn’t seem to work.) Terroni’s is “London’s oldest deli” and in Clerkenwell. Even though I used to work down the road (where the Guardian and Observer used to be based) I’d never been in there. It was boiling and there is no a/c. Some of the staff are quite surly, borne out of sheer exhaustion, in a way I recognised from my own family’s business - so I felt right at home. But the pasta was great: uncomplicated, delicious, comforting and authentic. It was empty when we went in but filled up with people at what seemed to be school going home time. It’s clearly very popular and I loved it.

This piece in last week’s Guardian was terrifying. I started reading it thinking it would be a run-of-the-mill (but still awful for those concerned) neighbours from hell type of thing, only to realise it was like something out of a horror movie. I think when one is threatened in one’s own home (which is why I think the crime of domestic abuse is so awful, beyond the obvious) it goes beyond anything else.

This article in the New Yorker, like so many articles in the New Yorker, is fascinating - about ticks. I’m so glad someone out there is still bothering themselves with facts. I find it really comforting reading these sorts of articles (not just in the NY, but the publications that still do this are vanishingly few), like throwing myself into the arms of an all knowing grandparent. The piece isn’t what you think, not just about Lyme Disease but majors on something called alpha-gal.

Talking of articles I need to go outside now and immerse myself in actual newspapers. Wishing you a great week.

This week’s Guardian column* was from a woman who felt her son didn’t spend enough time with her/didn’t care as much as she’d like. It was a gently heart breaking letter. The pressure (I felt) the son must feel was palpable and the reader didn’t give any indication of her own life outside of motherhood, nor what made it tick other than her son. That was illuminating. Often the therapists I consult want to ask loads of questions of the reader - as they might in the consulting room. But all I have is the letter and often what’s left in, or left out, tells me a lot.

But the subject of the letter encapsulated some of the contrariness of parenting. You put so much love into them and then they go. Which is as it should be. But it’s hard. Especially if you’re Italian like me.

I became aware that I would need to keep something back for myself when I eventually had children, when I was 33. I’d moved out of the area I was brought up in, although I had left home at 22. But in that first layer of detaching, I went just around the corner from my parents, so I often went home to have dinner. I joke that it was like living in an annexe, but it wasn’t far from the truth. I once woke up having had a terrible dream and got up in my PJs, put on a jacket and some shuffly shoes and walked round to my parents, waking them up, saying: “I had a bad dream” and then fell asleep on their sofa. I was about 26..with no mind whatsoever that I had woken them up in the middle of the night ,probably so that they wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep with the ease of someone in their 20s.

But, when I was 33, I moved in with the man who would become my husband and that really seemed to hit my mum hard, and she fell into a depression. One day not long after my move, we were sat around the big long table my husband had built for us, in our flat in Old Street, and my parents were visiting from Bayswater where they lived - it’s a distance as the crow flies of maybe three miles. On a good traffic day it took 20 mins to get to ours as there was almost a straight road between us. So it wasn’t far, but it felt far to her and I often heard her saying to people “Annalisa hasa moveda fara fara awaya”.

She’d been very down for a few weeks. When I asked her what was wrong - and I’ve never forgotten this - she said she felt ‘cheated’. I wasn’t to know I was three years off getting pregnant myself but in that moment children felt a long, long way away. But still I remember thinking “I can never let this happen to me. I have to keep something back for myself so the burden isn’t all on my children”.

(I need to pause here to say that, despite it meaning I would move ‘farra farra away’ my parents helped me financially to buy that flat, an act of such extreme and multi-faceted generosity that it has got more poignant with age.)

Children are never responsible for a parent’s happiness. And, once into adult hood, we are all responsible for our own happiness.

I had some interesting feedback from readers viz last week’s column “I can’ t afford a tutor”, mostly agreeing with the advice, some from grammar school teachers - one said the most miserable students he sees are ones that have been heavily coached to get in but then struggle. But one was really patronising saying his wife had managed to tutor their children with a full time job. The subtitles being that so could this reader goddamit. It showed such a lack of empathy and understanding that I felt, in that moment, for both his wife and children.

Yes I did write back to him.

I have had a really tough week. Wednesday was one of the worse days of my life. Not because anything in particular happened just the toll of everything got to me and I slunk, as spaghetti can do if you don’t get all of it in the colander at once, down the plug hole. I say this because I feel absolutely great now and the difference was basically: people. And exercise. I also say this because it’s both heartening and scary how quickly one can change mood and if you are struggling then please know things can, and will change. Unfortunately when one struggles it’s very easy to go in on one’s self and that’s the worse thing you can do. I also think it might be helpful to know that event the world’s best agony aunt can feel low (this is a title that was self awarded).

I have a few recommendations this week. These M&S Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Black Truffle Crisps. I don’t really eat crisps, or overly like truffle, but I bought them for my eldest who loves truffle and the rest of the family rate them highly.

Last week a fellow Substacker, Wabi Sabi Life and I were rhapsodising about the old pink Germolene in a tin, and the smell. Guess what!? I’ve tracked down not only what gave it its distinctive smell - wintergreen - but a viable alternative - although this ointment isn’t antiseptic, more for sore muscles. I spent most of Friday sniffing it and reminiscing. I stuck it under my husband’s nose and said “what does this remind you of?” and he said “something antiseptic from childhood”.

I also want to say: try this lovely tiramisu ice cream cake. It’s super easy to make and you can keep it in the freezer until you want a slice and it’s a sort of tiramisu Viennetta.

This neck fan from John Lewis is quite fun and not too expensive. I have a weird relationship with fans in that if the air flow is too much it sort of makes me feel travel sick (does anyone know what I mean?). I wouldn’t want it on anything but the lowest setting, however, if you have to travel a lot on public transport it’s a cute little personal fan that you can just have on your neck and is rechargeable. Apparently some pets also like it if you lay it down next to them but not my cats, at least, not yet.

Finally, Series 12 of my podcast concluded last week with an excellent episode on Agreeing to Disagree: How to Turn Conflict into Connections. I’ve learnt lots from it and I hope you find it useful. If you missed it my June Chocolate Diaries column was on Wednesday with some banging ‘new’ chocolate.

*At the time of writing this week’s column was the second most read thing in the Guardian (in World Cup season!) and I beat David Sedaris whom I adore. But this was a career- moment..

Good morning. Or evening, or afternoon, depending on when you read this. In Italian we only really have the former two. You say good morning - buon giorno - even in early parts in the afternoon when, suddenly, you know it’s more correct to say buona sera. I mean you can say buon pomeriggio but not many people do. In my experience.

I missed last week because I didn’t have a column which wasn’t due to anything onerous - we (my editors and I) decided some weeks ago that, as I was going to Poole, in late May it’d be a good idea to give me a break and we work several weeks ahead. But the column is back this week with a rather heart-rending letter from a mother who couldn’t afford to send her daughter to tutoring and what would become of her?

Disclaimer that my eldest tried for a grammar. She had tutoring for two weeks before -hand to get her ready for the exam technique. I asked her several times if she wanted to try for the grammar (it was, and still is, the only single sex state school in the area) and she was adamant that she did. Much later she admitted she did it “for the biscuits” they give you which made me love her even more. That’s a girl with her priorities right. I knew she’d failed to get in the moment she bounced out of the exam, and told me all about the essay she’d written on Nicholas Nickelby (part of the exam is a GCSE text, and she was ten at the time of taking this exam). And how she’d gendered Nicholas a she (Nicola is a boy’s name in Italian but I’m sure there were other queues in the text that he, at least at the time of Dicken’s writing about him, identified as male).

And I laughed and said that was probably the first time NN had been written about as a she. I knew she’d failed and I didn’t care one bit. What I did care about, and what I told her, was that she came out of the exam the exact same person she went into it.

That same year there was a mother who told her son if he didn’t pass and get into the boys’ grammar he was “on his own”. And another child wet themselves in the exam.

I hope this week’s reader - who clearly has her own demons from childhood - realises she’s doing the best for her child. But it’s hard to deny that money doesn’t buy you immense privilege in this world and it’d be a lie to say otherwise.

The last two weeks have been very up and down and I’m preparing for my next five day fast as of tomorrow which always brings with it a feeling of dread and alone-ness, but then I remember what it’s doing to my immune system. Today the sun is out, I may do a run, I have three teeny tiny bites on my hands due to the insects that come out when it’s hot.

If you suffer from bites, some tips. Debora Robertson told me about the ‘burn pen’ as we now call it in our house. It’s a battery operated device which delivers heat at about 51C, I won’t pretend it’s pleasant but as the endorphins (or whatever) kick in it does feel nice after. How it works - there’s a video here. I suffer terribly with mossie bites so I bought this a few years ago and it really really helps. It doesn’t get rid of them completely but it stops them blowing up like fake breasts on my skin. I use it in conjunction with Germolene cream, which has a local anaesthetic.

Yes, I too miss the pink-in-a-little-tin that Germolene used to come in.

I’ve had a couple of really shitty days recently and Wednesday was one of them. To try to change my mood I went into my local Waterstones and got chatting to the assistant. I don’t read much fiction because so much of my life is spent reading facts.

”I want a book that’s nourishing, not like eating candy floss, but not scary or awful and definitely not dystopian since life is a bit dystopian anyway.”

She recommended The Artist which I have started reading, often laying down outside on my swing seat, and it is just beautiful. The brief was precisely met - Amazon can’t do that.

I’ve become obsessed with globe artichokes after I had one in the Maris Piper Brasserie in Amsterdam which was just wonderful, as was the perfect, simple, little butterhead salad I also had there. I still dream of this simple dish. I’ve perfected cooking them (for the thought of cooking them seemed complicated) - I steam them for 25 mins and serve them with very good extra virgin olive oil and a bit of salt and that’s it. I love food that takes time to eat and they are super rich in nutrients and fibre.

Next week on Thursday, sees the final drop of podcasts from Series 12 , E6, and it’s on how to turn conflict into connection with Gabrielle Rifkind. As ever, it’s already available for paying subscribers on here. This week just gone E5 dropped, which was my interview with Pr Alessandra Lemma on Psychotechnical Beginnings and it is fascinating. Do listen. It’s not tech-averse - neither Alessandra or I are - but it does look at the very real impact tech has on who we are, who we’re becoming and on very important subjects like sex and mourning. The latter I found particularly chilling.

An antidote: my Guardian chocolate column is published this coming Wednesday and will be about all new things.

Have a good week.

In-law problems are on the wane in my column. They used to be a real mainstay but the problems have changed to less ‘family’ orientated problems (although still plenty of those) to more me-centric problems. It’s an interesting shift.

I usually forget to put links in my column to past podcasts I’ve done that could further help the reader (that was partly the whole point of me starting them, doh!) but a good one here would be the podcast I did on Boundaries.

This week has been a strange week. I’ve had/am having a dispute (which I will write about in detail anon as it covers some interesting consumer law) with Me and Em, a label I shop FROM A LOT but which has shown some really rather shoddy, and contradictory, customer service when things have gone wrong. Which has been massively disappointing.

Coincidentally this week I put on a scarf sent to via husband, for me, by the jewellery designer Dinny Hall who got personally involved in the late delivery of a ring he had bought for me to celebrate our anniversary (it missed the date but I am surprisingly chill about these things). She not only rang him in person, and offered him a discount, but then sent this gorgeous scarf and hand written note as further apology. (Before you ask or wonder, she had no idea the ring was for me, a journalist.)

Some recommends:

This New Yorker piece about modern day slavery was very good and reminded me of a letter I got some years ago from a woman asking if she had cause to be worried or if it was a ‘cultural difference’ she wasn’t getting. Her in-laws - who were behind all this - had convinced her that what they were doing was normal in their country, but they were now living in the UK. The reader went on to list what turned out (I consulted the police) to be very much not a case of cultural differences but cases of child trafficking, rape, enslavement and kidnapping. The cherry on the top of this awful cake was that her mother in law - who was complicit in all of this - worked in child protection in a hospital. I urged her to report it officially to the police, and she did.

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Years ago I bought some M&S melamine plates. I often use them in the photos I take of food and people ask me about them. I wish they still did them. In an attempt to think about outdoor dining I found that they now did these dinner plates and these side plates, nibble bowls and bowls. I prefer the bowls to the plates - they make nice, fun, picnic plates or outdoor eating ones. My husband HATES them but says he may come to like them, but I had to endure the boredom of plain white crockery for a long time so…

Talking of hats, which I wasn’t but I was as this is the bone of contention between me and Me and Em, I bought my eldest this hat from Marks and Spencer which she insisted she didn’t need for a holiday in the sun but then texted me from said holiday in the sun to say it was fabulous and she was wearing it all the time. It’s a shame it doesn’t have a strap to keep it on but it’s great and flat-packs for the suitcase.

I bought this book which is excellent. I do a lot of reading about nutrition (and my diet is regularly supervised and updated by an oncology nutritionist so I keep up to date with studies) and I often find things I read are lagging, but this book surprised me plus a lot of the recipes are great that I’ve made so far.

I like the fact that it doesn’t demonise fish (which is really important in my diet) but as a treat I made the caramel chocolate bars which are so good that even freezing them hasn’t stopped me eating them straight from the freezer. It’s so long (nearly two years!) since I had anything like this. Note: the caramel mixture was too sweet for me so I upped the nut butter to 200g, I may go even further next time.

I visited two wonderful shops this week. I’d held off buying trugs for my laundry from Amazon or anywhere else on line because I am so fatigued with online shopping. But it had got to the point that my old trugs were falling apart and I was carrying my laundry out to hang it up in washing up bowls…So I went to the fabulous Lady Jane Department store in Long Melford which is not far from where I live in Suffolk. It’s a delightfully eccentric multi-floored shop that sells everything from saddlery, to cake tins (I bought a 3lb loaf tin) and of course trugs. And lots in betwteen. Do make a special visit if you’re in the area, it’s worth it. I think it may be renamed now to Long Melford Saddlery but it’s all in the same place.

Also farm shops are often a disappointment but the Willow Tree Farm Shop is wonderful. The produce looks so fresh and is all loose so no unnecessary plastic and they seem to sell a bit of everything. There’s also a cafe if you need a pit-stop.

It was such a joyous experience actually shopping in person (I mean I know it’s obvious but we forget) and interacting with actual people and in the end the trugs and the cake tin cost less than they would have on-line. And no having deliveries thrown over your gate or mis-delivered.

Finally, if you haven’t seen it and you lived through the Rachel Nickell murder in the early 1990s, the documentary on Netflix is worth a watch. I don’t like any true crime documentary that is gory, but this talks a lot about her and her partner and son take part. But I felt so full of rage at some of the police’s arrogance that they believe they had caught the right man, when they hadn’t. But also that her actual murderer could possibly have been apprehended before.

Podcast news. In case you missed it this is about Series 13 and last week my podcast on The Menstrual Brain went on general release (it’s been on here, ad free, for some time for paying subscribers) which is essential listening, frankly, for everyone not just women and girls.

Have a good week, it should be sunny in the UK towards the end of it, in the meantime I hope the vegetation enjoys the rain we’re getting.

Breast surgeon Dr Anushka Chaudhry. As you’ll read in the piece when it comes out, I have a very chequered history with breast surgeons. They are usually the ones who tell you that you have breast cancer and mine were hopeless at doing this and their clumsiness plummeted me into despair and a depression that was completely unnecessary. I’ve searched high and low for a breast surgeon who can explain things clearly, calmly and with great empathy for the patient and Dr Chaudhry is that surgeon. We will talk through lumpectomies, mastectomies why one may be favoured over the other and breast reconstruction (or aesthetic flats) and lymph node removal.

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This week’s Guardian problem is about someone not sure if they are in love with a friend/colleague or not. TBH when I read the letter I thought they were two students together - that’s how I read it. The disadvantage (which a lot of people don’t get) with working with a letter is that you can’t ask questions. It’s not a conversation as it would be in a therapist’s consulting room. The letter did indeed say “we work together” but because a lot of my readers don’t speak English as a first language I can never be sure that wasn’t a linguistic slip up.

To be absolutely accurate I don’t know that this reader is speaking English as a second language and I don’t have any reason to think they are students together - that was my assumption. But it’s interesting that the subs - who write the headline - very much saw it as colleagues. I might have read it as students as the letter struck me as coming from someone young, either in age or attitude but I chose it because it’s very similar to a lot of letters I get atm. Sometimes they tell me their exact circumstances: how old they are, where they work etc. But at the heart of these problems is always an almost adolescent delusion of love that is clearly not reciprocated but the letter writer feels it could be, which makes me wonder if that sort of love (a crush? Infatuation?) strikes at something in all of us that’s not quite fully mature, despite our actual age and how otherwise rational we are. I had one letter, not that long ago, from a man who told me he was in love with a colleague. This man had a family, had a position in his company, and it was really clear that his colleague was not interested but he still held onto this hope, this delusion, that his colleague would be with him if only she could.

I get various permutations on this theme. In fact just as I’ve been writing this newsletter I got another one.

This week I’ve been at the seaside in Poole in Dorset, southern England. It’s our only summer holiday this year and we really had great weather. Whilst I was there I had an interesting email making some claims against a therapist I'd used a few weeks ago in my column. This person signed it ‘anonymous’ but I was able to see their name - or a name - on their email because they hadn’t been quite clever enough to change it.

We are super careful about the therapists and specialists we use so we take this sort of accusation seriously. I wrote back saying I would investigate it if they made an official complaint, otherwise what proof do I have that it’s genuine and not vexatious?

But so far I haven’t heard back.

Every time we go away we try to do some pottery painting and thus have a memento of our holiday. We went to All Fired Up in Bournemouth which is a lovely place, and I painted a bowl which, when finished, we all agreed reminded us of the caffe latte bowl my mother used to drink out of as a child and which I inherited (but am now too scared to use). When it has been fired and returned to me I’ll show you a comparison.

I love doing these side by side tasks as they allow for silence and contemplation and also remind me that having an idea of something is often one thing, executing it is another. I am obsessed by Paravicini plates from Italy. They are staggering expensive but so beautiful. The Rocaille range in particular reminds me of the sort of plates my maternal Nonna had, not just the pattern but the hues. I could actually make myself tearful staring at them for too long and remembering chaotic, noisy lunch times around her table when I still had a full and bustling family tree (I so took that for granted..) that were all too brief because the house she lived in she moved out of to live with her daughter - my aunt - to live in a new build when I was five, and everything changed and got modern. I didn’t mind it then, the modernity was exciting but I look back now and the way she lived with her decades old crockery and dark wood furniture and her woodfired stove (and no bathroom..only a loo and a sink..) and wish I had some pictures of it or more memories.

After pottery painting we went to the cinema to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2 which was enjoyable - precious little Prada in it - but muddled and too many story lines and not a patch on the original.

We ate at Pi Pizza - excellent pizzas, great service. Rick Steins which was disappointing this year (the service was pretty crap from our waiter, wrong order, late order, waiter not listening, which would explain the wrong order..). Fabulous chips but so hot you couldn’t taste them. Rockwater where the food was fab - I am still dreaming about their broad bean and pea humous with flatbreads - but the service was haphazard and slack. I’m very particular about this as I was a waitress from the age of seven (yes really) to 18 and both my children work as waitresses part time so it’s not as if we don’t know what makes good service or how hard waitressing is. This also makes me a very understanding customer.

Some recommends: I have a fabulous, very expensive hat from Me and Em which broke whilst on holiday (still waiting on what they plan to do about it). So I don’t currently need a new hat but I bought for my daughter’s upcoming holiday this stripey hat from M&S which strikes me as very good. It’s big, reversible and packs easily.

I also bought her some packing cubes. I got some a few years ago, just regular ones, but then my friend Lucy bought me some jolly yellow striped compression cubes which are great. They are particularly good if you travel a lot and need certain things for certain legs of the journey as it’s all compartmentalised (I travel a lot for work, not madly far or exotically, but far enough to need things packed). Anyway I really recommend these - there are some crap ones out there - you need the ‘entry’ zip (ie not just the compression zip) to go all the way round and the zips need to be good quality. (They were on offer when I bought them, which made them really good value, but I see they really are quite a lot now so I’m sure you can get good ones that are quite a bit cheaper.)

I also really like these PJs from John Lewis: these are super expensive (watch for offers) but gorgeous (and have pockets which are strangely really useful); these gingham ones are cheaper and still really nice and fresh for the summer. I have to wear cropped PJs because I am short and normal length PJs are always too long and need to be taken up.

On Thursday Episode 2 of my latest series (12) podcast went on general release, it’s about Dissociation with lead of the trauma unit at the Tavistock Dr Joanne Stubley. It’s a fascinating topic as dissociation (not disassociation) is something we can all do to varying degrees. I have a tendency to dissociate in medical settings which is challenging given how much time I spend in them. This week I have two hospital appointments, one for my regular targeted antibody treatment and then a new hospital for me - my fifth - for a specialist scan which will, I think, complete my portfolio of scans as I believe I will have had had pretty much every conceivable type.

You can see why I have expensive pyjamas.

Next Thursday (4th June) sees the launch of The Menstrual Brain with Dr Sophie Behrman which complements the one we did in S11 on The Menopause Brain. It looks at what happens to our brain during the various stages of the menstrual cycle and is a must listen for every man, woman and age-appropriate child. I wish I’d known that the menstrual cycle affects not just the body but also the brain (I mean doh, but no-one tells you this stuff when you’re a teenager in the 1980s).

Talking of the 1980s we are watching and really enjoying Rivals and my answer to almost every question my children ask is “it was the 80s”.

This week’s problem in my Guardian column was super interesting. They always are but this one was particularly interesting as it was about suspected lying, and the effect on the letter-writer.

Lying is an interesting subject. Growing up I was dramatic and could embellish and I’d be lying if I said I never lied. But I didn’t do it habitually and only once maliciously (so rare I do remember it). However, I got the reputation of being a “little liar”** which stung, partly because it was, I felt, just part of being creative but especially when another member of the family did go on to lie, spectacularly, about a whole other life they were leading. As a grown up I wrote about the injustice of this (under a pseudonym), got caught out and told off, yet no-one thought about the native fact that what I was writing about was the truth. And so I became the bad guy in that scenario and yes it still rankles. The majority of my lying was about where I was going as a teenager because my parents’ answer to everything was ‘no’ without discussion. I didn’t want to lie to them, but they didn’t give me the space to discuss the truth.

**When I went on to become a journalist I sometimes wrote first person pieces. I had shown my mum once such feature I’d written. I can’t remember what it was about now. But her reply, which deflated my moment of pride was “Whata loada of lies”. This wasn’t an unusual response to things I wrote that were from my POV. (By this stage facts really did matter!)

Eventually I realised - thank God for my job talking to therapists - and instead of sinking into defeat, I replied saying “No Mamma, not lies, just what happened to me, not you.” It was a defining moment in becoming a grown up. I realised then that people have what I went on to call their survival narrative - a narrative that’s allowed them to exist and if you puncture that with alternative facts - your take on situation say - they really don’t like it. This is why siblings, especially, have such different POV about childhood.

Alessandra Lemma, the specialist I consulted for this week’s column, has written extensively about lying. She explained that, generally, people lie for one of two reasons: self preservation (what I would do as a child), but there’s a second sort of lying which is more ‘sadistic’ and about humiliating the other person. The “I know something you don’t” scenario. Lying as control. Remember: with-holding anything (sex, money, information) is very often about control. Certainly I experienced that growing up, a member of the family would guard their information and use it as currency. The problem with this is that after a while, people lose interest, which is what happened to me. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I found myself in the world of journalists where people are curious: interested and interesting. I still regard it as a huge honour when people share information with me.

People often ask if the letters I get are real. And I say I don’t know. I think so, because they go into such detail and you do get a feel for these things after a while. But also if they are lying I say they still need - are asking for - my attention. So I give it if I can. This is neatly incapsulated in Alessandra’s last line in the column:

”The truth lies in the suffering that the lie points to.”

Should we talk about the weather and how glorious it is? Why not. Isn’t it glorious. I’m trying to convince my husband we need more garden furniture. This isn’t, of course, because I need his (or anyone’s) permission before buying things with money I’ve earned. But it’s nice if you get validation. We do have quite a lot of garden furniture, but I really want an orange chair under the hawthorn tree near my laundry line.

Separate to the orange chair, I am always on the hunt for the a particular chair which is to say, a Nonna chair. This is a wooden but lightweight - absolutely key - basket weave seat chair with a slightly ornate ladder back. The sort Nonnas (the plural of Nonnas is actually Nonne) use to sit out on the doorstep and watch the world go by. It’s a very particular sort of chair and I’ve never found it. I see lots of them in Italy - my relatives would usually have one knocking about on the balcony, and we used to have one in our garage that my Nonno sat on to make baskets - but I’ve never found one here. This is about as close to one I’ve found (the price: insanity) but even then it’s not quite right. Or these, but again, not quite right. You need to be able to lift them, with ease, with one hand, as you move them from place to place to follow the gossip.

Talking of Nonne and perhaps you’re about to go on holiday to a self catering place which will have rubbish knives, these ‘Nonna knives’ (yes: everything is about the Nonne) are brilliant, cheap, colourful and I have several (they do come in different colours if you can find them). They are good for almost everything and I always take one when travelling if I can, but not in cabin luggage, obvs.

This week I’ve been making these enriched dough breadsticks which I love. And I made oat and raisin cookies and tiramisu.

And with the weather heated up I made up a batch of my supreme iced coffee (that’s enough showing off: Ed). My family love this and you just store it in the fridge and then use about half the mixture to half milk of your choice, with some ice cubes.

(This is the version I drink because it has very little sugar and no dairy.)

I’ve been drinking (eating?) a smoothie I adapted from a Deliciously Ella recipe. When she brought out her first cookbook it was utterly crap. Truly awful. So I stayed away from her recipes for ages. But, as a relative new comer to plant based food I now find her app to be terrific value and really, really useful. I’ve also bought some of her cook books.

Some of her recipes - so much improved - have now become staples. I’m really pleased my friend Valentina suggested I give her another go.

Anyway this is my current favourite post-work out smoothie which I’ve adapted from her recipe above. You do need a high speed blender.

100ml plant based milk (or dairy milk)
100-150ml water
Two ice cubes
A tablespoon of shelled hemp seeds
A tablespoon of chia seeds
A tablespoon of good quality cacao powder
A tablespoon of tahini
A banana
A pitted date
A tablespoon of oat bran
A tablespoon of porridge oats

Everything into a blender for 30-60 seconds (you may need to shake half way through or stir, as the seeds can stick to the sides depending on your blender). Drink immediately. Amazingly this smoothie actually fills me up for quite a long time. And it’s utterly delicious.

Uniqlo has these rather nice looking tiered skirts (disclaimer: haven’t tried yet as I am replete with tiered skirts but generally love them for the summer). They also come in gingham if that’s your thing (I love gingham but not in a skirt, not for me). Whilst you’re there, look at these open knit jumpers. I saw these in the flesh and, for me, none of the colours are quite right other than of course black. Which is what I got. I wanted it a bit big so I sized up to a medium (I’m usually a 10/12 on top, just for a guide). The neck could be a bit wider, so I keep stretching it but it’s a great jumper for when you want some coverage without much weight or heat.

This feature, about a baby found on the New York subway, made me strangely emotional. I was shocked that the judge offered the baby to the man who found him. Not because he wasn’t worthy of it but it seemed so much like common sense, and that is so often lacking.

Last week saw the general release of E1 of S12 of the podcasts: The Art Cure with Professor Daisy Fancourt. Next week we have my chocolate column on Wednesday (it will be on this page) which is about my legendary bars plus an epic new one added to the list. Thursday sees the launch of E2 of S12: Dissociation with Dr Joanne Stubley which is fascinating, about how the brain can split to protect us from trauma to a lesser or larger degree. For paying Substackers this episode is already on here (ad-free).

Have a lovely week.