114. Bread and Butter Pudding

Mainly, I don't eat pudding. I'd rather have another glass of wine, or some cheese. But I make the odd exception and Bread and Butter Pudding is one of them.

It's nursery food, of course, but if you put some grown up flavours in there, like ginger jam, or a hint of cardamom, it takes you at least to prep school.

l had a very delicious B&BP the other evening and I was reminded of its crunchy custardy fruity loveliness. And as I am allowing myself one week of comfort eating I enjoyed every mouthful.

113. Amber & Lavender Cologne

I've been wearing Jo Malone's Amber & Lavender for years now. I don't wear anything else, bar the odd squirt of Coco if I'm feeling really posh. A big bottle lasts me over a year, and there's something about the simple glass bottle and its metal top that is both pared down and pleasingly luxurious. The scent itself is beyond my powers of description but I have yet to tire of it.

There is a pleasure in having a sort of 'signature' scent. There is something old-fashioned about it that I like. I just hope they keep making it...

112. Bertha Elizabeth Pringle, 1922 - 2010

Otherwise known as Granny.

A truly talented, but humble, painter.

A mean maker of chocolate fridge cake and meringues.

A wholly rubbish cook, but it didn't much matter.

A keen eater of chocolate, and nut yogurts.

A beautiful, sensitive pianist.

A beautiful woman, with no thought of beauty.

A properly dangerous driver.

A devoted wife, and mother.

A committed Antiques Roadshow viewer.

A generous, kind, patient, giving, funny, supportive, proud grandmother.

She has gone to a place full of loved ones who've missed her. We are poorer for her loss.

111. Watches

I got my first watch for my 10th birthday. It's possible that it had Mickey Mouse on it, which suggests that it wasn't a parental purchase, but nonetheless I remember feeling very grown-up and proud of my new arm adornment.

Since then I've worn a watch most days. Which is a weird slavery, when you come to think about it. (I don't usually wear one at the moment, however, it gets in the way of the typing and why do I need to know the time?)

But I do love watches. Herself gave me a lovely Swiss Army watch for our first Christmas, which I didn't take off until it left black marks all over my arm from sheer filth. Charming. So it needs a new bracelet which I have yet to organize.

My dream watch? A Cartier Tank Francaise. I will never be the kind of woman who can wear one of those, so I'll settle for a classic Rolex Oyster Perpetual.

I notice watches on other people. Your watch tells me a lot about you, and I will be judging you on it, so choose carefully and expect to answer questions.

110. Chips

Now, it might seem odd that it has taken me 109 posts to get to chips, but potatoes and chips in particular are so entirely central to my life that it's taken me until now to think of it. For me, saying that I love chips is like saying that I love breathing. Or blinking.

For any Americans reading, I do not mean potato chips. I mean fries. But I mean English fries, which come in many shapes and sizes.

There is the chip shop chip. Salty, vinegary, the smaller ones crispy, the larger ones either fluffy or greasy depending on the quality of the chippy and the hotness of the fat. All chip shop chips are good if you are drunk or cold or both.

There is the standard issue pub chip. Salty, but more like a posh oven chip - uniformly crunchy on the outside, but might need help from either mayonnaise or Tom Ketch. Good, but could often be better.

There is the fast food fry. But I don't eat fast food any more so I haven't had one of these chips for years. I seem to remember that McDonalds did the best chips and Burger King did the best burgers. Is that still true? These are not really chips, obviously, but they would do at a pinch.

Then there is the posh restaurant fry. At Le Caprice, swanky London restaurant, you can choose between 'pommes allumettes' and summink else chippy. Get the matchsticks. The chips at Le Caprice rival those at the Wolseley, which rival those at the Ivy. But, in my humble and frighteningly untutored opinion, the best chips in London at the present time are to be found at Le Relais de Venise, on Marylebone Lane, W1. It helps, of course, that they accompany the best steak in London, which will be liberally supported by the most frustrating and delicious green sauce ever invented. The chips are thin, hot, salty, crunchy, fluffy, light, substantial and best of all, you get two helpings of 'em.

I inherit the chip thing directly from six generations of Irish ancestors and, more particularly, from The Parent. She doesn't eat potatoes in any other form, I don't think, but every now and again, starting from a gentle rumble and building (if ignored) to a mighty shout, she will say 'Chips' and keep saying it until she is fed. Ignore her at your peril.

109. Foraging for fruit

This weekend, in Suffolk, Herself and I have picked blackberries, rosehips and done a tiny wee bit of scrumping. I made a blackberry upside down cake, and we're going to make rosehip jelly with the rosehips and the scrumped apples. We spent many a merry hour getting our hands covered in blackberry juice and, in my case, being so determined to get to the really juicy specimens at the back that I got my entire body attached to the giant bramble bush and had to be forcibly removed with a sound like splitting velcro. My poor clothes.

They were everywhere, these free fruits. Round every corner and along every path and lane. I kept expecting passersby to stop and say, 'oi!' but instead they said, 'It's so nice to see people picking those - they always just go to waste.' Lots of people had suggestions as to what we could do with our plunder (blackberry and apple crumble is a popular choice among elderly gents in Suffolk) - it was all very friendly.

The dog couldn't work out what the hell was going on.

Most years we pick elderflowers and if we can, wild garlic. But to add fruit to our list of foraged items is rather exciting. Herself has a plan about where to find apple trees in Kent, and wild plums too. It's fun, it's free, and it's tasty - once you've washed off the spider's webs and the dust and the dog pee...

108. 'Damages'

We have come only recently to pray at the altar of Damages, but what we lack in experience we make up in ardour. We watched Season One in three days, sitting on the edge of the sofa, clutching cushions, occasionally turning to look at each other in wide-eyed astonishment/bewilderment. We had to put a hiatus on Season Two.

It's the kind of show that you couldn't watch week to week because you would literally die of anticipation.

Plus you get to watch Glenn Close's ever-evolving facial work. It's sad, really. It was once a wonderful face, and now she looks like a Muppet.

Pour yourself a Hendricks and tonic and settle in. But don't expect your social life not to suffer.

107. John le Carre

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will perhaps recall the fact that my yumptious Parent's house is in reality a library. Growing up, that library seemed already to have everything I needed in it: Winnie-the-Pooh, Enid Blyton, Frances Hodgson Burnett, etc. The only authors I had to add myself were Judy Blume and Virginia Andrews. Sadly for me, as it turned out.

When I put away my childish things (still haven't completely) the library really came into its own. It didn't occur to me until I was quite grown up that both my parents were prodigious readers - I suppose I assumed everybody's parents had houses stacked with books. But there was PG Wodehouse and Jilly Cooper (very useful for those awkward transitional years. Also very instructive.) and the Brontes and Jane Austen and great books old and new, as far as the eye could see. But, saved til quite late as I believed myself not intelligent enough, with their pale covers and bold typefaces, was the work of John le Carre (the computer won't do the accent, sorry.)

My notion is that the Old Man was the big le Carre fan, and that the Parent read him because she reads everything, but I may be wrong...

I'm still too stupid to get all the nuances and complexities - he's worse than Iris Murdoch for complexities - but the writing is like jumping into Lake Coniston on a clear day. It is bright, cold and clear and somehow painful but satisfying. He captures voices like nobody else. A character can have three lines over eighty pages and you would know him anywhere. The spy stories are labyrinthine and thick with cigarette smoke and ennui, and not for everybody, but if George Smiley didn't exist the world would be a poorer place. I have struggled with the post-Smiley world. Some have, some haven't. I haven't worried about it too much, as I have the spooky stuff to go back to, and I even like his first two novels. The best thing of all was discovering the man behind the wounding, inspirational pen. I have seen him talk twice, and both times I've sat rapt with attention and fascination. He'd have been a great teacher, I think.

So anyway, another bookish thing, but a vital one. He's nearly 80 now, tucked away on his Cornish clifftop. He likes a whisky at the end of the day, apparently, so here I raise my glass to John le Carre. Long may he scribble.

106. Aspall's Cyder

Aspall's is to cider (forget the y) what Sancerre is to white wine.

It is made in Suffolk, it is light and appley, it is crisp and dry, it is PROFOUNDLY alcoholic.

In Aldeburgh, and other reputable Suffolk towns and villages, (and the Green Man on Riding House Street, W1) I can get Aspall's on draft and if I'm lucky they put it in a special glass. I do love a special glass.

It goes beautifully with fish. And fishfingers. And everything else.

Forget Magners and other wannabes. You're either on Diamond White, and are about to be dead, or you know about Aspall's. I drank something the other day that tasted like boiled down cider-flavoured ice lollies. Yuck.

It will make you very pissed though. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Happy Friday.

105. Dingy Weather

I am a November baby, a mid-season Scorpio, and Irish to boot. In Galway everybody has black hair, blue eyes and skin the colour and consistency of tracing paper. There, I am happy, I am among my people. I mention these things as I believe them to be relevant to today's topic: preferring bad weather.

I have never been a fan of proper heat. Poor old Herself, who is a salamander in human form, would dearly love to spend at least a couple of weeks a year lying on a beach in 40 degree heat, but sadly for her she chose me, who'd rather be in Ireland, in the rain. We compromise in Italy, in late September.

But only recently have I had to accept, fully and gracefully, that I actually prefer it when it's dingy. Sun and heat and everything is lovely on holiday, but sitting inside in front of a computer all day every day only feels good when it's grey and miserable outside, and better if it's raining. Fiction feels easier, writing copy isn't a pointless childish way to make a living, I"m glad that I work from home and don't have to go outside. In nice weather I have to draw the blinds in order to see the screen, clothing becomes impossible; the only good thing about it is how nice white wine and beer suddenly taste.

No, it's grey skies for me, please. Preferably half way up a mountain round a lough in Galway, amongst my people, but Charlotte Street will do at a pinch. I look better in Autumn/Winter, I feel better in Autumn/Winter, I understand the point, emotionally and psychologically, of Autumn/Winter. Would I feel differently if I were a July baby? Answers on a postcard, please...

ADDENDUM: OK, I'll admit it. Twenty minutes after I wrote this post, I was nearly drowned in a biblical downpour. I had to take shelter in a Holiday Inn and buy new socks at the gym for fear of trench foot. The timing can only have been somebody's idea of a Little Joke. However, it was exhilarating, and I was going to get wet at the gym anyway.

104. Double Deckers

Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate.

All chocolate is good, but in a sliding scale white chocolate would be in its own sub-category, sub-basement.

Two squares of 70% cocoa a day is OK with the health police, and I do try to stick to that, but every now and again a girl needs a whole bar of Galaxy, or, occasionally, a Double Decker. That's just me, though. Herself would always go for a Snickers, for example, and if I were really going to let my hair down and go for broke I'd probably still go for a Mars Bar, but, like minstrel shows and 25 year old gay 'room-mates', some things are no longer acceptable.

Cadbury's Caramel is good, but it has to be cold. Fruit & Nut is good but I get the nuts stuck in my teeth and sometimes the raisins leave a weird taste behind them. Walnut Whips are too sweet and sickly. Galaxy Ripple is excellent but can seem insubstantial. On days where all these thoughts go through my brain, I opt for a Double Decker.

Cadbury's chocolate, nougat, ricey stuff. Choccychewycrunchy. You want it room temperature, no distractions, nobody tutting at you. You might feel a bit sick afterwards but that's just the societal pressure - it'll wear off.

If you want, you can recite the old advert: 'Keep up your pecker, with a Cadbury's Double Decker.'

Ahem. Yes.

103. John Lewis

They have everything. The staff are knowledgeable and rewarded for their knowledge - a virtuous circle. It is a reasonably pleasant shopping environment considering it's a vast department store - the lighting is better than Selfridges' and Bloomies'. The coffee in the coffee shop with the great views is tasty and not expensive. The receipt is a warranty and you can take stuff back and they just give you a refund. It is one of the few things I would miss if we left London for the seaside. (Not counting people)

BF goes on an almost weekly basis with her lovely Mama - sometimes I think they go even if they haven't got anything to buy. That's how you know a good shop.