The month that was: February

What happened:
In the first two weeks of February I was working in Notting Hill. This is the first time I've worked in a consultancy capacity since last July, other than an odd day I did in November, and it made me realise that I'm quite lucky to be in a position to spend a lot of my year writing.

My first week there we had snow - it was difficult leaving the warmth of the house on those days(!) - but I explored a bit in the second week. I scoped out Portobello Road, and went for a walk in Kensington Gardens.

(Look at the difference a season makes - that's Kensington Palace in February to the left; to the right is how it was when I visited in June, a few years ago. Hurry up warmer weather!)

Book-wise, I now have the book cover for Lost in my possession, which will be revealed on March 5th, and I spent the last two weeks of February frantically making the manuscript sparkle. I still have another week to work on it before it goes off to my copy editor - wish me luck - but you can pre-order it on Amazon right now.

We celebrated a 30th birthday in Kent, which was fun, but I caught germs whilst we were there and ended up with a cold and sore throat. Thankfully I managed to shake it off very quickly: spicy Nando's, buckets of lemon and ginger tea, Sudafed, and lots of sleep helped. (What are your remedies?)

For Valentine's Day, Olly and I had a low-key day as I was recovering from my cold and Olly was feeling like he was coming down with one (so typical). He bought me a dozen gorgeous pink roses, and we ate a beautiful meal at home, spending the day watching movies on the sofa.

The following weekend we had a touristy afternoon to make up for it, ticking things off our London 2015 bucket list. We ate at Maltby Street Market, and then saw London from up high at the Sky Garden, 20 Fenchurch Street (the "Walkie Talkie" building). That was about it for February, other than me preparing for my birthday trip to Morocco by buying new clothes!

What I ate:
The fridge freezer got fixed, which made life a lot easier! We picked up awesome lamb cutlets from Dugard and Daughters, the excellent butchers in Herne Hill, as well as some epic chicken legs wrapped in bacon and stuffed with pork sausage meat. If you're local to Brixton/Herne Hill/Tulse Hill/Streatham, pay them a visit!

I tried KaoSarn at Brixton Village, which has tasty Thai food, and I ate lots of katsu curry from Wasabi whilst I was working, plus we visited the aforementioned Maltby Street Market.

I ate at Wahaca - a favourite of mine - although the service isn't what it once was unfortunately; I also gave empanadas a go from the Wahaca cookbook [recipe]. I'll be making those again, and trying out various other fillings.

Finally, have you tried bacon jam? We had a layer of it on the bottom of a brioche bun, and then filled our bun with a wild boar burger, smoked bacon and balsamic-fried onions (with melted cheese on Olly's; I don't do cheese). Delicious!

What I watched:
I *finally* watched all the episodes of Pretty Little Liars that are available on Netflix, so I'm now down to watching one new episode each week when it gets released. Better Call Saul started on Netflix last month, also airing one episode each week, and I'm really loving finding out Saul's story back when he was Jimmy McGill.

Film-wise, I watched: Marie Antoinette, Melancholia, The Zero Theorem, Little Miss Sunshine, Bad Neighbour and American Beauty for the first time, and I re-watched American Pie, American Pie 2, Titanic and Love Actually. 

What I read:
In February I read 8 books, which included When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr for the 2015 Classics Challenge. I loved Silent Scream by Angela Marsons - an awesome crime thriller - and I also enjoyed The Forgotten Holocaust by Scott Mariani and Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

How was your month? x