If I’d known I looked that confused in the photo, I would have asked Nick to take another. Oh well.

Now, remember the red hat with the tassel I finished last month? Zaa saw it and immediately declared that when she visited I’d better not be wearing it as she would steal it from me. And she’s bigger than me. So she’d win.

So I sent her a couple of photos of yarn from my stash that would work, and knitted one for her.

Pattern: Wood Hollow Hat, by Kirsten Kapur (Through The Loops)
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Chinatown Apple
Needles: 4.0mm

Not being a lover of tassels, I gave her hat a big fat pom-pom. Which she adored. And this is the great thing about Zaa.

We’ve known each other since my first attempt at university, back in 1999. When I returned to Southampton University, we lived together in her house for four years. And how we did that is pretty cool, considering that we’re somewhat opposite people.

She is terribly, fastidiously neat. I live in a bomb site, and she wonders how I know where everything is. She works stupendously hard. I am a slacker and master of the last-minute assignment. She is very independent and enjoys her own company. I am fairly clingy and feel more at ease around friends. She runs marathons. I did kung-fu. She’s vegetarian. I am a solid meat-eater. She loves football. I love rugby.

At the same time, we have similar tastes in music and film. We both enjoy trying new things. We love dogs. We prefer baking over cooking. We love great conversation and good food.

So for all those years, we orbited perfectly well around each other. I don’t think we necessarily get each other, but we each respect what the other does and the choices we each have made, and we’ve always been interested in what the other is doing, even when we haven’t got the slightest clue.

So even though I know she’d be horrified if she saw my stash, and mystified as to how I could spend what I spend on yarn, she loves my knitting. She is that ultimate non-knitter friend who completely and utterly appreciates and loves the things knitted for her. True, to date it’s only been this hat and a pair of socks (they were from 2009, Zaa; I checked), but if she asked for a knitted thing I would not hesitate. I would happily offer.

Plus, I think the pattern looks better in the yarn she picked than mine. The semisolid colour gives a bit more texture to the pattern, and I think makes the pattern more interesting. Not that I’m going to steal it from her, of course: she’s bigger than me. And I’m too small to get away with a big floofy pom-pom.

I think she may be overdue a pair of socks. I have yarn and sock club patterns. Hmmm….

The A and Z hats. Similar, but different. As they should be. 

I don’t really believe in Valentine’s Day. I think I did in my early, stupid days with earlier, stupider boyfriends, but not anymore.

Firstly, it’s a little unnecessary for us. Nick’s birthday is in January, mine is in April, our anniversary is in August and then comes Christmas. Our times of personal celebration are perfectly spread across the year that we can always have a good meal out and celebrate at our own pace, in our own time. We used to celebrate the anniversary of when we started going out, but we became an old couple very quickly and we did away with that one.

I mean, you try going out on Valentine’s Day. You need to pre-book and compete with all the other people wanting a Valentine’s Day dinner, and more often than not you’re saddled with the set menu because most restaurants are out to make a killing, and you probably have to leave your table in about 90 minutes. Don’t do it. Go out when you want when everyone has a fair playing field, eat whatever you want off the menu and know you’ll have at least two hours unless it’s busy.

Secondly, I think Valentine’s Day makes people feel bad. It magnifies loneliness, raises bitterness or sadness and forces obligation. Do we need an engineered holiday that isolates people who happen to not be in relationships? No. Do we need an unwelcome reminder of past relationships that ended, for better or worse? No. Do we need a specific day to buy flowers, have a nice meal, tell each other we love each other? No. And if we did, there is something very wrong with how we run relationships.

Thirdly, Valentine’s Day, as far as I’m concerned, has very little to do with love.

In times of depression I’ve had great difficulty liking who I am, nevermind loving that person. For a time I didn’t even know who that person was, so I was still getting to know the stranger inside me, even when she seemed familiar. And if I wasn’t very good at loving myself, how honest was I in loving the people around me? What did I know about loving other people if I didn’t even like myself?

As things got better, though, I became very aware of one thing: I felt like a person that was easier to love. I was getting more comfortable with myself, and that feeling spread to the people around me. So while it’s still a struggle, things are more at a balance, and I feel a lot more honest about how I love the people around me.

I got to thinking recently about what love meant. I’m a very lucky person in that I’m married to my best friend, and we love each other in ways that are weird, wonderful and sometimes may contain swearing. But nothing about us came to mind.

Instead I came to one abiding image that I have never forgotten, ever, and doubt that I ever will. I am going to share it with you, and I hope you’ll agree with me.

This was in the early days of living in London. It was Waterloo Station, on the Jubilee Line concourse. I was passing through to get home, and I saw them.

Two of the most gorgeous men I have ever seen, hugging each other as if for the last time. One had long locks of wavy dark hair and olive skin and dressed in a smart suit. The other was fairer with shorter blonde hair and was dressed more casually. There was a small suitcase between them.

Neither was willing to let the other go.

Clearly it was a business trip. I think this must have been during the last days when you could still take the Eurostar from Waterloo. It didn’t look like it was going to be a long trip, as the suitcase wasn’t very big. Half a week, maybe.

But they held each other for what felt like forever. They were smiling, they were sad, and they said nothing. They radiated so many things: I’m going to miss you. I wish you didn’t have to go. It won’t be long before I’m back. You are the most gorgeous thing in the world and I adore you.

London’s commuters flowed on either side of them, moving like water past twin rocks in a river. It’s not that they took no notice, though this being London, ignoring others can be the norm. It was that I think they did notice, and gave this couple the space they needed. There was so much love that it made a space.

The very idea of Valentine’s Day would be smashed to pieces by the force of it.

I remember walking past those two men. I remember stopping briefly. And I remember smiling my entire journey home.

Love who you are. Love who you’re with. Love whenever, wherever you damned well please.

I was doing really well at first: I had an overdue baby blanket, a rectangular shawl that I cast on in December 2010 and I joined the Through The Loops Mystery Sock KAL. That’s three. Then during a post-Christmas knitterly meet-up, Ling of Socktopus threw me a skein of yarn that I’d been admiring but not dared to bring home with me and said that I could knit them a sample.

So I started that.

And then I felt the sudden urge to change my mind about my colour choices for a pair of colourwork mittens, which resulted in me having yarn that no longer had a purpose, so I decided that I needed a new hat.

A hat with what feels like a giant tassel.

Pattern: Wood Hollow Hat, by Kirsten Kapur (Through The Loops)
Yarn: Quince & Co. Lark in Winesap
Needles: 4.0mm

So even though I finished the hat, I still have four things on the go rather than three. And I’m about to cast on something else. It’s all gone a bit wrong, but I figured that maybe it’s okay, and it’s me being genuinely excited about knitting again. I fully aim to finish the overdue baby blanket before the end of February, though, so that should help clear my conscience… if I ever had one to begin with.

I did, however, finish spinning a bump of fibre. This braid here:

became this skein of yarn here:

Fibre: Spindlefrog Oatmeal BFL in Woodland
Specs: 4 oz, 130 yards, 11 wpi (DK weight)
Wheel setting: Spun at 1:13.7, plied at 1:9.5
Technique: worsted-spun, short forward draw

I pretty much threw this fibre into the wheel and waited to see what would happen. I’m currently in an odd love-indifferent relationship with spinning, where sometimes I’m happy doing it, and other times I sit there, staring at the singles on the bobbin, the fibre in my hand and genuinely think: “What is the point? It’s still crap.”

I know I can’t get better at spinning without actually, you know, spinning. But I constantly feel like I’m having to relearn a lot of things, and making the same mistakes despite all my trying. I’m probably overthinking it all, and I did find that the spinning was easier going when I had an audiobook to listen to, so I’m sure it will be better.

I thought just for fun I would do a post at the end of every month also rounding up the books I’ve read and the films I’ve watched. So for January:

Read: Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King (from the library). I’ve always preferred his novellas and short stories, and this was a nice collection. I liked Fair Extension best, because it was simple, cheeky but horrific in its normality. 1922 I thought was the hardest to get through, but it was one of those stories where I kept checking how many more pages I had to go, not because I couldn’t wait for the story to end, but because I didn’t know how much more of the claustrophobic horror I could take before its conclusion. It’s that sort of good.

Still reading: Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (Kindle). It’s my second read-through of Stories, though I never read the last story by Joe Hill, so while I can’t say anything about that one, I can safely say that my favourite stories in this collection are Gaiman’s The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains – there is a moment in this story where I had to exhale in satisfaction, because something that was at the beginning caught with something near the end – and A Life in Fictions by Kat Howard.

Songs of Love & Death, edited by George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (hardback). I’ve only got through six of the sixteen stories so far, but it kicked off with Love Hurts, by Jim Butcher, set in the Dresden Files, so that was a great start. I really need to keep more short story collections around. These have been fun.

Watched: Thor, dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2010 (LoveFilm). We rang in the New Year with this, and it’s just ridiculous fun. It helps that Chris Hemsworth is rather nice to look at, and while that’s all well and good, I really want to see more of Tom Hiddleston. It tickles me that Kenneth Branagh directed this. Who knew he could come up with an Asgard that was so beautiful to look at that all Nick and I could say was, “Damn. We need a bigger screen for this.”

The Rock, dir. Michael Bay, 1996 (BBC1). I have a soft spot for this film. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it harks back to a time when daft action movies still had Don Simpson, and Michael Bay hadn’t got the idea that he might be the best thing since sliced bread. But I can quote this movie in too many places, and I own the soundtrack. I am not ashamed.

Four Lions, dir. Chris Morris, 2010 (LoveFilm Instant). A film is a great comedy about radical Islam when each and every time I laughed, I thought whatever God was in charge of this world would strike me dead. Within the first ten minutes Nick and I were quoting bits to each other and laughing like idiots. It’s bittersweet near the end, but as any good satire, it made me wonder about all the people out there who do think like Barry (Nigel Lindsay), or who are perfectly innocent like Waj (Kayvan Novak).

And there goes January.

This is our massive sofa. It’s in our living room, right under the south-facing window, which means on most mornings, this is the warmest spot in the flat, and me being the cat-like creature that I am, tend to secure this corner with some sense of territory.

There is always a pillow and a blanket there, because this sofa has been a bed for so many people. Ruth herself has slept on it, and our best friend Chantelle lived on it while she was writing her Master’s dissertation. A number of friends have spent the night on it: it’s long enough that 6′ 2″ Daddy Irish can sleep comfortably on it, and a pair of our friends have slept on it on each end, feet meeting in the middle.

During the worst of my depression, this was where I stayed. It was my safe corner, and had everything I needed. My knitting, my books and magazines, my writing tools: I would knit, read or write as I needed. It’s even where I spin, as it’s a comfortable enough height for me to sit with a bunch of cushions against my back to treadle along with a DVD on the telly, or an audiobook on my iPod. Hopefully soon we’ll be getting a dock sound system, and it’ll be easier for me to listen to my playlists and audiobooks without using my headphones.

In the last year, that windowsill has been home to my plants that I grow from seed. So while there is currently only a bright basil plant there to provide me with colour, soon there will be little pots of seedlings, all doing their growing in the warm sun, and potentially providing us with lush colourful chillies, too.

This is where most of my knitting gets done. A little card table allows me to write by hand in the sun. Books and magazines get read in turn. This is where Nick and I huddle up in the evenings in front of the TV – usually shouting at Pointless or drooling at cooking shows. Sometimes I’d be knitting and he’d set up the card table to paint his miniatures. Sometimes we’d both be reading.

Quite often, I sleep here.

Whenever Nick comes home, I’m pretty sure he checks the sofa before he checks my office, to see where I am.

When we do move, some time in the far future, we’re probably going to hang on to this sofa. Maybe I’ll work out how to get new covers for it, and it will likely live in whatever room I claim as my office.

You know, I think I’m going to go and knit for a bit. You’ll know where to find me.

My parents were quite happy to buy me books, whatever books I wanted. They were always insistent that I should be able to read, write and speak good English, especially my mother, so the fact that I was happy to read must have thrilled them.

But I never had a library.

I had school libraries, yes. But the books were pre-selected, and were still from the era of its British founders from 1893, and despite the fact that I was in school between 1986 and 1994, the books seemed to not change very much. There were rarely new books, very few current books, so it was hard for me to find something I actually wanted to read in my school libraries.

And because of the strict school rules, we weren’t allowed to carry in books that weren’t either textbooks or books that were from the school library. They would be confiscated, and you’d never see them again. Which led me to become my school’s Roald Dahl contraband dealer: I would sneak in books by Roald Dahl, secure them in hiding, and friends would borrow them, secreting them home and returning them to me when they were done.

(There were other dealers. There was definitely a dealer in Sweet Valley High books, and another in teenage horror fiction, but if we each knew who the others were, we never spoke of it. It was strange times, but perhaps schools in Malaysia were a little stranger then.)

Nick, on the other hand, grew up mostly in a library. He would find books he otherwise might not have found. He got shown books upon which he might otherwise have not have cast a second glance. He read so much and so widely, especially in science fiction and fantasy, that sometimes I could pull the name of an author I’d never heard of, and he would have read them.

His dad had started reading him The Hobbit when he was about five, so he tells me, and they moved on to The Fellowship of the Ring not long after. Not long after that, Nick took off by himself, to read on his own, and never stopped. I don’t think anyone in the Irish house ever did stop reading.

(The rectangular shapes of many of the Christmas presents are not accidental. I did marry into a reading family.)

Books in his home were not often brand new, but inherited, or got second-hand. They seem more precious that way, because I guess it feels to me that they had to be obtained, whereas I probably took for granted the ease in which I could acquire books. We have his dad’s copies of Stephen Donaldson’s The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant – Dad, if you’ve been looking for them: sorry! – and they’re beautiful and battered and well-loved. A lot of our books look this way now.

Our two reading histories led to two different reactions when we found out that we were getting a new local library in Canada Water. A proper big library. Not a school one with its limited and locked-down books, not a university one filled with reference texts – though I loved my university library a great deal – but a real library.

Nick just smiled knowingly, as if this was always going to happen, like leaves falling in autumn. I was beside myself with excitement. My own library.

It was much more important to us, I suppose, because elsewhere in the country, many libraries were facing closure. Even libraries in London were in danger. And yet here we were, with a shining new library, complete with convention space, meeting rooms and soon a new outdoor courtyard. We are among the luckiest and most grateful people in the country, and we know it.

I took out my first real library book last week. A book not on a class reading list, or one that had the essay I needed to read before my next seminar. A book I wanted.

Nick came home to find me in my office, on my beanbag, reading. After dinner, the flat was quiet, because I continued to read. He was reading, too, at his desk.

It is the nicest feeling in the world.

When I started this blog back in May 2010, the focal points of my life were quite different. I was unemployed and spent most of my time crafting – or trying to be crafty – with varying degrees of success. I often felt guilty about the crafting, because I always felt like I ought to have been doing something more useful, something that would contribute more to my little family.

Then I decided to go back to college, and now horticulture and design has become the major part of my life, leaving my crafting where it should be: as a hobby, an indulgence, a reward. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed my knitting more, and everything feels more at a balance.

The banner image is of a baby leaf from Liriodendron tulipifera ‘Fastigiatum’, also known as the tulip tree. I took this photo at RHS Wisley in the spring, and this baby leaf was just emerging from a bud, and looked absolutely new and perfect. I love this tree – this is a fastigiate form, so it’s much narrower in habit – because it is only one of two trees in the whole world that have this leaf shape. It’s called the tulip tree because of its tulip-shaped flowers, rather than the cut of its leaves, but only a mature tree would flower, and they have to be about 20 years old to flower.

I think this baby leaf sums up how I feel my life is now a lot more than the old banner. It is clean and fresh and going in a new direction, and it feels good to have something to focus on.

But there are other new things, too.

You will have noticed the new icon in the sidebar. I will be a guest blogger on Rock+Purl’s blog later this year in September, but in the mean time, do go and visit the blog for a new guest blogger every Sunday. Ruth had the great idea of recruiting guest bloggers to share ideas and inspiration, and if you’ve ever met her, you’ll know it’s hard to refuse her. It will be exciting to see all the other entries, and I’m going to be looking forward to each Sunday.

You may have also seen that I’ve added a Gallery tab above. It’s empty for the moment, but I’m hoping to showcase some of my photos more this year. I have so many that I haven’t even looked at or dealt with and hopefully this will get me going. What may also help is that I’ve joined an informal Project 365 group on Flickr called Photo Stash with some friends, so again, more impetus and inspiration to come.

This being the first day of 2012, it’s usually time for resolutions. I usually have the same ones, and achieve some of them with – again – varying degrees of success. Last year, I wanted to:

• Knit more from stash: which I did, largely, even though this did not stop me from adding to said stash.
• Knit more socks, what with the sock clubs I’m in: I knitted three pairs of socks for myself. Not quite the half dozen I’d hoped for, but hey.
• Spin more and knit from handspun more: this totally did not happen, especially since I didn’t take part in Tour de Fleece 2011.
• Sew more: ehn. I don’t think I’m ever going to get very far with this. I think I have a mental block with sewing because I don’t have adequate space, nevermind it being comfortable, for me to sew.
• Blog more: while sporadic, I did not miss a single month, so that’s good.

I also passed my RHS Level 2 exams, and while my volunteer work didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, at the end of November I joined the Horniman Museum and Gardens volunteer team, and I have to say it’s been the best volunteer experience I’ve had thus far. I will definitely be staying with them for as long as I can.

So what about this year? Well, I’m pretty good with the blogging, so I have no real worries there. The usual things, like keeping fit, reading more, watch more films, are all good and doable and I’m happy with them. But otherwise:

• Knit more socks from stash: already underway, but as I’m in the Knit Love Club  and Cookie A’s sock club again, the stash is going to get added to regardless of my efforts.
• Keep the stash under control: I haven’t been really in a yarn-buying mood as of late, so maybe I’ll be all right…
• Knit another garment: oh yes. I love my Montview Cardigan and haven’t really stopped wearing it, so I am very confident of knitting another garment. I can’t wait to choose!
• Spin at least a bump a month and blog about it: this could be doable, and the blogging will keep me honest. I hope to do Tour de Fleece this year, too. My office is warm for a reason, and that’s fibre-based insulation.
• Keep my WIPs to only three at any one time: also doable, as my focus is better now and I’m happier to keep to projects now that I’m more occupied with horticultural-type things.
• Visit more gardens and learn more about plants and design: as if anything could stop me from doing this…
• Complete my RHS Level 2 Practical course and land either an apprenticeship or an actual job: I am pretty sure I can do the first thing; I worry about the second.

But I think above all, Neil Gaiman has said it best, and I’m sure he doesn’t mind if I share this with you:

Hopefully, that will launch before the New Year, and will ring in all the better things that we are all hoping for.

But in the meantime, the Christmas bread got made last night, I finished the one knitted gift, and everything got wrapped up nicely.

The boys in the family get gold, the girls get silver. If that hints at a bit of OCD, I should inform you that I got my wrapping skills from my mother, and you should see her wrapping. It’s like Grand Designs with origami and ribbons.

(And yes, I always end up wrapping my own presents. I’m good at looking surprised.)

There are quite a few cool things and ideas for 2012, and I will share them with you soon. But until then, have a lovely Christmas, and here’s a song we should all learn the words to.

I kind of finished it twice. I first finished it a week ago, and I was so excited about being able to wear it to the Knit Night North Christmas party I sewed on the snap closures and buttons as fast as I could and wore it. A few days later I undid all the closures and buttons and sewed them on better; the snaps are still so stiff that I worried that the fabric would pull, so I secured them better and I’m much happier with it now.

There is so much to love about this cardigan. Apart from the fact it’s my first ever garment, it’s also incredibly well-designed and well-instructed, even with the limited space that most knitting magazines give for patterns. This only cements, to me, the genius of Ruth’s patterns, and why I think everyone should be knitting her designs.

Where this pattern succeeds and others have failed to get me to make a garment is I think in the cabling. I can get addicted to cables, and I develop the mentality of ‘oh, just one more cross…’ very quickly. It also gives me something to chase after, which makes the going easier and quicker.

I started with the 43″ size, and then decreased to the 39″ to accommodate my more hippy figure, and it’s resulted in a longer garment as I did the decreases accordingly and didn’t try to do them quicker. I like it this way: hip-length things have always looked good on me, especially if it’s well-fitted. Which this garment is. It also gives the cardi a lovely drape, especially when I wear it unbuttoned.

Princess seams shape the body, the decreases and increases done on the wrong side, which is brilliant because you can’t see them, and also the reverse stocking stitch hides it all so well. The reverse stocking stitch background also gives a lovely platform on which the cables really pop out and make themselves known.

All the garter stitch details – the lower band, the cuffs, the button and neckband – are wonderfully squishy. Especially around the gorgeous collar. Garter stitch, folded over, is possibly the squishiest thing ever. The collar is shaped with short rows, and as a bonus, in garter stitch you don’t have to pick up all those wraps! You just keep going and you get a superb result.

I’d previously never seamed anything before, garment or not. Luckily, Ruth helpfully furnishes her blog with seaming tutorials which makes the job incredibly easy. She also dedicated an entire blogpost to this design, with handy tips and tricks. If every designer did this, we would all be fearless.

While this is my first garment, I will say that the construction has totally convinced me of seams. Yes, I know. I think working in the flat, certainly for a cardigan, means that you can divide up the work much more easily, and you know you can stop at the end of a row. I think I might have keeled over from sheer boredom if I’d had to knit for miles and miles round and round and round.

Seaming also gave me a break from the knitting. I got tired of knitting the buttonband at one point and decided to spend the rest of the day seaming up the sleeves, which was kind of therapeutic, in a weird sort of way. The break gave me the impetus to get on with the rest of the band, because it really meant that there wasn’t much more to do!

Setting the sleeves was a daunting prospect, but thanks to Ruth’s precise maths and my (luckily) good and exact gauge, there were no issues at all. Everything fit into place perfectly: no rucking, no tugging, no fixing. I could never have been more pleased.

I found the buttons at Loop, much to my relief. I didn’t really fancy having to go on a massive button-hunt. The warm black ceramic gives warmth to the colour of the cardi, and are light enough to not weigh down the band but still strong. Again, having a garter stitch band makes it easy to mark a straight line on which the buttons go. That and lots of coil-less safety pins.

The fabric is glorious. It was a sunny but very cold day today, but I didn’t feel the least bit chilly while getting these photos taken, especially considering how deep the cut of the cardi is. It’s great on its own and it layers very well under a coat.

I think the only bit that I wish I could have done better were the sleeves. They came out a little long, but then given what I said about the squishiness of folded-over garter stitch, it isn’t a massive issue. Plus the extra length keeps my hands warm.

I’m very proud of this project. Not just because I actually finished something so big in such good time, and not just because I’ve finally accomplished the one thing that has always eluded me, which was knitting an actual wearable object that wasn’t an accessory.

But I am so proud – so very unspeakably proud – to be able to call such a talented and brilliant designer my friend. Thank you, Ruth, for something so beautiful and so intuitive, and for being so inspiring and encouraging.

Pattern: Montview Cardigan, by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud (www.rockandpurl.com)
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed Aran in Dusty SH728
Needles: 5.0mm for the body, sleeves and bands, 5.5mm for casting on the lower band and casting off of the body, 6.0mm for casting on the cuffs and casting off the button and neckband. 

The body was done and blocked earlier this month. The whole thing took two days to dry but it was completely worth the wait. The fabric has softened beautifully and the yarn has bloomed, filling out all the little spaces where I did pick ups and so on. It took a few tries, but I seamed the shoulders up and after leaving it alone for a while I don’t think I’ve done too bad a job at my first ever shoulder seam.

About a week ago, I finished the sleeves and blocked them, too. They didn’t take long to dry at all, and are now all unpinned and folded, waiting for me to sit down to seam them up.

I’ve already picked up the buttonband – man, that’s a heck of a lot of stitches! – and done about an inch’s worth. A couple of evenings’ work and I should have that squared away, and this project has increased my confidence so much that I know that it will only take me a couple of hours to seam up the sleeves, and maybe a couple more to get the sleeves set in neatly into the armholes.

I’m stupidly excited about this project. It’s my first ever garment, which in itself involves a lot of firsts – seaming, shoulder joins, shaping, sleeve setting – and after trying it on sans buttonband and sleeves, it fits exceptionally well already.

It can only get better.

I taught myself to bake over 11 years ago. I was living in a flat in London doing a second set of A-Levels, and for want of something else to do other than learn English Literature and watch numerous films for Film Studies – which isn’t always fun and popcorn, I promise you – I figured I’d learn to bake.

This is my first ever baking book. I chose it at random, I remember very clearly, from the flagship Waterstones in Piccadilly, because there was a recipe for banana bread in it. That was it. I still have it, and I still bake from it, and nothing in it has ever failed me. I’ve amassed a few more over time, but always for sweet things. I used to bake often when I still lived with Zaa back in Southampton, because there was always someone around to snaffle up whatever I baked.

My problem, oddly, was that while I loved baking, I couldn’t really eat everything I baked. Not that I couldn’t; I just didn’t have the capacity for that many cupcakes, or brownies, or even fruit bread. So unless I had someone to bake for, I didn’t do it very much.

Nick’s the cook; I’m the baker. Sometimes he helps, which is very nice, but sometimes does make me wonder how I baked all those times without a large, tall man helping me. The other nice thing about Nick helping is that he does help with the eating as well, which does encourage me to bake more. But if I kept that up, the poor man will be the size of a house.

So to bread.

Nick was always interested in baking his own bread, more so when we inherited a fantastic breadmaker from my former boss, Michelle. Nick and I don’t eat enough bread to justify buying a supermarket loaf, and whenever we do need bread, we would try to get a good baker’s loaf. Making it in the machine whenever we wanted it is pretty game-changing, especially when it allows us to make smaller loaves that suit the two of us just fine.

We’ve not been too adventurous: usually a white loaf, or a wholemeal one. A few times we’ve done a honey and sunflower seed loaf, which I love but which we haven’t made in a while. But all in the machine. And while it’s game-changing and really very awesome, Nick still wanted to try making bread by hand.

The fact that the Flour Power City Bakery is within smelling distance from our flat doesn’t help matters. When the wind’s just right, all you can smell in the air is fresh yeast baking.

For all his efforts, Nick hasn’t had much success when it comes to hand-made bread. He’s tried a few things, including sourdough with his own sourdough starter, with, um, varying results. He’s not entirely sure why he’s not quite succeeding, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Yesterday I declared that I wanted to have a go. I figured it’s still baking, and it’s definitely something we would both eat on a regular basis. So Nick got me into my apron – I think it was for him, but it’s obviously Ali-sized and not Nick-sized so I don’t know how anyone thought it was for him – and read me instructions as I went, telling me how he did it before and so on and so forth and checking that I was doing it okay.

(Our instructions come from this book, which is excellent, as well as referencing whatever Michel Roux Jr. said when he was making bread on the Great British Food Revival.)

I’ve decided that I like baking bread. It sort of suits me, as there are a few days where I am just rattling around at home, and this would be perfect for me to do while doing whatever else I’m doing while at home. I like that the bread dough is alive and doing stuff while I’m not looking, like, you know, growing. I like how it smells and how it feels in my hands and I like shaping it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s therapeutic, but it is very nice to do.

Nick was a very proud man when I pulled out this loaf last night. It had flattened a little just before it went into the oven because I had to lift it from where it had been proving onto the baking tray; the solution is to probably find a couple of flat baking sheets, without a lip all around, which won’t be hard or expensive. But luckily it still rose, and after ten minutes it had gone a lovely pale gold, and we readjusted the temperature and waited.

There was a lot of waiting, even till this point.

The loaf came out light, but not as light as I’d hoped – to me, it weighed about as much as it did when it went in. According to the book, that would be because the bread was underproved, a show of impatience. Must do better. On the other hand, it made a good hollow sound when we rapped the bottom, and the crust held when we poked it, so it looked like a good bake.

Maybe more importantly, it tastes like a decent bake. It tastes like a white loaf if we made it in the breadmaker, except maybe mine is a little on the dense side. I’m not entirely happy, but it will be perfect with stews and soups, and that’s okay. I think if I started the process sooner – i.e. noonish instead of after four in the afternoon – I would have given myself and the bread more time and it would have been better.

Which is what I’ll do at the weekend. This stuff is kinda addictive.

Bread. My bread. I made it.