sophistication

Alice Takes on the Pudding Van

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, Coronavirus, Culture, Event, Everyday Occurances, food, House, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Prompt, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Wheelie Bins, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

Someone abandoned their catering van on my housing estate. And I was not happy.

Look at it! It’s massive!

Naturally, I applied a very level-headed attitude to this. That’s right, I sent a ranty email to estate management. It went something like this:

WHY IS THERE A MASSIVE CATERING VAN PARKED IN A VISITOR SPACE? I’VE CHECKED THE REGISTRATION PLATE (“XXX XXX” for your reference) AND IT’S NOT TAXED OR INSURED. IT’S UGLY AND CLEARLY BEEN ABANDONNED. I PAY MY MANAGEMENT FEES, SORT IT OUT!

(The caps are a reflection of the shouty voice in my head…I may have also left the last bit out.)

Estate management responded, saying thay they’d located the vehicle’s owner and told them to move it within the next 48 hours.

48 hours came and went, the van unmoved.

I wish I could say I became tolerant of the pudding van’s presence, but when you’re facing onto something like that every time you go to make a cup of tea, it’s very hard to let go. (Plus, you know, me.)

Whilst waiting for the owners to be chased up again, I did a little investigation of myself. By in investigation, I meant be super nosey.

There weren’t any company details on the van and the only online presence seemed to take me back to a deactivated Facebook page, from when it operated out of Pershore some 56 miles away.

Instead of hard, concrete information, I had to deal with statements like this:

It reads: “Feeling stressed? Stressed backwards is desserts”

I don’t know what bothered me most; the font, the words or the fact that it’s annoyingly true. Everything about it grated on me more than the sugary sweetness of the food it claimed to provide.

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Update: I drafted this post in September 2021, however in June 2022 the van disappeared altogether. I assumed it was at local festival but it never came back and I haven’t seen the van since. No idea what has happened but the problem of the Pudding Van seems to have sorted itself!

I’m totally putting it down to my ability to moan, that or my top-notch judgemental stares out the window.

(And as for why I’m not posting this until now…well, I forgot I’d written it.)

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I’ve Been “Cooking” Again

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, British, comedy, Cooking, Coronavirus, Culture, Event, food, House, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Review, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

Recently got the kitchen done = no oven for two weeks = several takeouts and a trillion microwave meals.

Now, you guys all know how horrific my life choices can be when I set my mind to it? Well this, this shows one of those in action. Behold, me deomonstrating how to prepare one of my signature classics, “East Meets West”.

An absolute culinary pro from start to finish.

Next question, who’s coming over to mine for seconds?

(Ps, if you’re after more kitchen inspiration, here’s the link to my stodge dinner recipe.)

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A Very Happy Alice

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Book, British, Coronavirus, Culture, Europe, Event, Humor, Humour, London, Mellennial, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, Review, sophistication, Swindon, Tourist, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, Young Professional , , ,

I’ve just got back from my writing retreat and, newsflash, it was beyond amazing.

Full retreat cohort, including course tutor/professional author Caitlin Davies (in the red jumper)

I met 22 wonderful human beings (15 other participants + tutors/guest readers + Arvon staff), and there was so much to take in and reflect on, and every night I felt I like I could burst with creativity (which would have been awkward, as I don’t think anyone signed-up to being coated in chunks of Alice…at least not before dessert).

With so many thoughts, feelings and emotions running through my head, it’s hard to put into extacting words what the past week has meant to me. From 1-2-1s with critically acclaimed writers, to long walks, to sitting down at a desk (in front of a gorgeous view) and hitting word to paper, my time spent on an Arvon tutored retreat at The Hurst (deep in the Shropshire Hills) has been an incredible experience.

A group of us prepare for a mid-morning woodland hike. Photographed alongside course tutor/publishing editor Jacob Ross (second right)

I’ll get something more substanial down soon but for now know this; I’m a very, very happy Alice!

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Alice’s Signature “Three Ingredient” Cooking (Alias “Stodge Dinner”)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, Coronavirus, Europe, Event, food, House, Humor, Humour, London, Mellennial, Mermaid, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

A couple of videos that showcase just the level of my culinary abilities. I’d caveat it with something like, “it had been a long day in the office and/or it was 23:00 in the evening”, but it wasn’t. It was 19:00 and it was me, being me.

Part One – Preparation and Cooking

Part Two – Finishing Touches and the Taste Test

Oh, and here is the pastry I mentioned in the video, the free one.

I think it was a citrus tart. It tasted of lemons. It was going out of date that day, so someone came up to me and asked if I wanted it. Five days after said expiry date, I ate it (because that’s the kind of classy girl I am).

So, who wants to hire me as their private chef?

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You’re Welcome

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Commute, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Event, food, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Review, Social Media, sophistication, Staycation, Tourist, Travel, Uncategorized, Vacation, Young Professional , , , ,

I sent a thank you card to one of the restaurants I frequented when I made a solo staycation to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

(God knows what I wrote inside, I can barely remember what I ate for lunch five minutes ago.)

Whatever its contents were, The Northern Whig clearly enjoyed them enough to prop it up on their fancy bar and share it on their Instagram story.

Caption reads: Such a thoughtful thank-you card from @aeb.thewriter

You’re welcome guys, hope to visit again soon. x

**

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That’s When the Cleaning Fumes Got to Me

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, alcohol, British, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Dating, Europe, Event, Friends, House, Humor, Humour, London, Mellennial, Mermaid, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

You know how it is. It’s a Friday night, you’re a single woman with the world at your fingertips and anything is possible. You could go out, let your hair down or…you could stay in and give your kitchen a deep clean.

Thing is, I’m not even embarrassed to admit this. In the same way I’m not at all ashamed to say the only bottles this girl was demolishing the other night were these:

(Obviously in non-drinking, sense. Please don’t call 111.)

With cleaning plans firmly lodged in my head, I changed out of my dress and put on a black vest, thus transforming me into a low-budget search engine result for “contemporary dancer near me”.

(No refunds for crimes against the aeroplane dance move.)

First item in my line of cleaning sight (yes, this was genuinely how I spent my Friday night), the fridge. Breaking this mighty deliverable down into smaller, manageable, chunks (who said bringing the day job into personal life isn’t exotic?), I went for the bottom drawer first.

This was followed by a healthy amount of neighbour stalking / Alice rambling (feat. actual cleaning).

Several hours later, and after inhaling quite a considerable about of cleaning fumes in a confined space, this happened.

I’m not going to explain nor apologise. I sent it to my close friends and the responses speak for themselves.

So that’s how I spent my crazy Friday night, what about you?

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Supporter Shout Out: Baker Tea House, Cardiff

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, cardiff, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Humor, Humour, love, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Review, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Tourist, train, Travel, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

A massive thank you to the team at Baker Tea House in Cardiff for the lovely card and coffee and cake vouchers! Super unexpected but a wonderful delight.

Baker Tea House is my absolute, number one, favourite coffee shop, quite possibly ever (definitely in Cardiff). I have been frequenting it for years. Located in the High Street Arcade (opposite Cardiff Castle), this multi-level venue stocks oodles of teas, alongside the coffee classics.

(Image credit: http://gourmanda.me/2016/10/24/review-barker-tea-rooms-and-36-hours-in-cardiff-wales/)
Image credit: https://www.tea-rooms.uk/2019/02/barker-tea-house-cardiff.html

Thanks to the pandemic I’ve been unable to go for over a year. Which sucks. Wales said that English people weren’t welcome to cross the border, the politicians in power said so. And we all know what happens when people say no? That’s right, it turns it into forbidden fruit.

Gareth Bale…

Gareth Bale makes decision on offers to leave Real Madrid during summer transfer window - football.london

Welsh footballer, Gareth Bale, now counts as ‘exotic’, on account of him being someone that, at one stage, it was illegal for me to visit.

Huh? No, I don’t fancy him. Just, *whispers*, forbidden fruitttt. (I’d probably fancy a chimp in a suit if it was classed as forbidden fruit…don’t tell my employers I said that.)

And don’t tell me I’m using the pandemic as an excuse; it still counts.

What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, Baker Tea House.

For anyone interested in visiting, here’s a handy link – https://www.barkerteahouse.com/

(The same management also operate Coffee Barker. Handy link – https://www.coffeebarker.com/)

NB – for the avoidance of doubt, no one sponsored or asked me to write this post. It’s written it in thanks and appreciation to the staff and owners.

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My Face, On Your Tissues

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Event, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, Prompt, shopping, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

There is more to the humble spam folder than missed opportunities and utter junk. Exactly, there’s missed junk opportunities!

Ladies and gentleman, may I kindly introduce to you this email…

I admit, it’s not the easiest to read on the photo. Let me detail it below:

HiAeb
I am glad to know your demand for the tissue market.
We have specialized in providing customized tissues for more than 8 years, and have provided sources of supply for many domestic companies.
We are eager to expand channels and we are eager to cooperate with you.
Samples will be sent to you for evaluation.
Thanks, and best wishes

Ms Luo (General Manager)
Chengdu Dixuan Trading Company

I know! Cutomized tissue paper?! Where have these opportunities been in my life? In my spam folder, that’s where!

Oh my, I think I’m getting giddy with all the possibilities. “Expanding my channels” – I can see it now, my face in toilet cubicles up and down the country. No, not the country, THE WORLD!!

I’ll be quite honest with you, I can’t think of anything much better.

Or, I could do as my email provider recommends and just delete the email, or, do nothing and let my email provider automatically delete it for me. (I’ll let you guess which I ended up doing.)

And people say I excited over nothing…oh hey, a shiny bit of foil blowing down the street!

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Fancy Chinese Footwear

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Art, Brexit, British, clothes, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Event, fashion, Feminisim, House, Humor, Humour, London, love, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, Prompt, Review, Shoe, shopping, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Theatre, Tourist, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

So here’s a bit of background for you, on the jazzy socks featured in Why Alice is *Still* Single…Probably.

Back when I was living in London I had the absolute pleasure of attending the Tate Modern’s critically appraised exhibition Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy. It ran between 8th March – 9th September 2018.

I didn’t attend “1932…” until late on, days before it was due to close. Why? Because I’ll be honest, Picasso had never really been my bag. I appreciated his reputation and there’s no denying Guernica is a masterpiece of political demonstration, but otherwise I just saw the man as someone who took a lot of credit for not a lot.

Don’t shoot me.

In the end, it was a little voice inside my head that urged me to go, that I’d only regret it if I didn’t. (Also, because at the time I could get in for £5. Minor detail.)

I’m so very glad I went. For one, turns out the man is just as trigger happy on the paint brushes as I am on my blog. In one year he produced over 100 works of art (mostly of his mistress). Secondly, some of his work isn’t too shabby.

Don’t get me wrong, I still had questions. Most of my secondary school art projects were on par with Yellow Belt.

And yet God knows, you never saw my Art teacher praising me as the Second Coming. I took a snapshot and sent it to my Mum, she still insisted I keep the day job.

So what has all this got to do with socks? Well, sometime after the exhibition I was browsing the wonderful world of Far Eastern shopping when I came across some socks printed with the iconic painting The Dream.

I’ll spare you my cobble-dash description on this painting but yep, the way he painted the face is intentional (classic playboy Picasso). More information here.

Short story, shorter, I found a pair of socks online depicting this masterpiece (or, as the sellers called them, “style #3 sleeping lady”). Don’t ask how or why, it’ll be easier for us both. Neither did I enquire as to the copyright, given the same people were also selling “magic man” socks of Jesus.

12 million months later my socks arrived, looking something like this:

First observation – no way in hell were these made for a ladies foot-size 5 (EU 38). Definitely men’s socks. But still, the print detailing was alright and the image had been flipped. Without disclosing the price, (*cough* 99p), you get what you pay for.

I couldn’t wait to try them on.

Then I looked down…

Because the socks were bigger in size than expected, I’d had to pull them up higher, and because my calves are the size of tree trunks, the print was stretched-out even more.

Far from looking mellowed after a bit of artist lovin’, Marie looks genuinely pained from having her face stretched to that of a horse. And let’s not even go there with where that places Picasso’s perceived manhood.

Oh well.

I’m still gonna wear them though. I mean, Picasso socks! How cool is that?!

…What? What’s wrong?

Thanks Col, babe. xx

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Alice, On…

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, alcohol, British, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Dating, Europe, Event, family, Humor, Humour, job, London, love, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Tourist, Uncategorized, Vacation, Wedding, Work, Young Professional , , , , ,

Let’s start off with some backing music:

1998 this song was released, 19-flipping-98. Still a belter but golly, are we all getting old. And please, don’t come back to me saying you have no memory of this track or, worse, you weren’t even alive then. I-I just can’t.

Any who.

After the questionable success of my previous post, My Sister, On…, here is the “me” version of that. Don’t worry if you haven’t read said post, you’ll get the hang of this very quickly.

Alice, On…

Alice, on…Responsible drinking

Alice, On…Effective conflict resolution

(For context – I picked a fight with a pavement.)

Alice, On…Tropicana on a budget

Alice, On…Workplace integration

Alice, On…All-nighters

Alice, On…Open bars

Alice, On…Bathroom fittings

Alice, On…Haircare

Alice, On…Summer

“Alice, why are you taking so long to rub the sun cream in?”

“No reason!”

“Well then, can I get up?”

“DON’T YOU DARE GET UP YET!!”

Alice, On…”Does my bum look out-of-proportionately big in this?”

Alice, On…Any kind of headwear

And finally (for now), Alice, On…Basic photography skills

Oh, trust me, you’re welcome

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Ko-fi (Formerly Buy Me a Coffee)

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