You know, I picked this journal post idea because I thought it would be easy, but now that I sit down to do it, I’m having trouble gathering my thoughts! Writing journal posts really shouldn’t be part of the list, obviously.

Alright. Three things.

Number one – logic puzzles. Not so much the ones where there are two guards, and one will always tell you the truth, and the other one will always lie, and you have to pick a door, etc, but the ones that are printed in a grid and you have to put ticks and crosses next to the right answers. I love those! I started doing them when I was seven or eight on holiday in Spain, next to the pool. My father could see that I was bored, and started me off on the really easy ones at the start of the magazine.

Not to brag or anything, but I haven’t come across one of those that I couldn’t complete and I always do them in pen, not pencil, that’s how confident I am!

Number two – baking. I’m not great at decorating cakes, but I bake a mean sponge! Actually, I bake a light, golden sponge that is moist and delicious, but you get the general idea. I love puttering about in the kitchen, trying new recipes. My go-to recipe is from The Hummingbird Bakery’s first book, but my favourite cake to make for someone’s birthday is Nigella Lawson’s Boston Creme Pie sponge cake. The trick is to get the consistency of the creme patisserie right and to do that you can’t refrigerate it once it’s cooked. It has to cool naturally, which is why making the cake takes such a long time!

Number three – writing. I feel a bit self-congratulatory saying that, but what the hell. I’m a published author with royalties and fans! I must be pretty good for that to happen. I get some really lovely reviews that always make me feel better about myself when I read them. The fanfiction that’s still hanging about the internet has over one hundred thousand hits, and nobody knows that I wrote that, so I must have some talent. I’m constantly reading some really talented authors, though, so I’m always comparing myself to them and I don’t come out favourably!