Young Professional

My Housemate’s a Mermaid – THE PODCAST

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) #blog, adult, British, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Dating, Economy, Europe, Event, family, fashion, Film, Finance, First Time Buyer, food, Friends, Gym, History, Holiday, House, How To, Humor, Humour, job, Literature, London, love, Medicine, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, Pets, Podcast, Review, Social Media, Swindon, Tourist, Travel, Uncategorized, University, Wheelie Bins, Work, Young Professional , , ,

Another one from deep within the MHAM draft posts that never made it to air…until now.

Back in 2021…

I was thinking to myself the other day “you know what? There aren’t enough podcasts in the world. And golly, there sure as heck aren’t enough opinions being shared around. I should do something to rectify this immediately!”

Or, alternatively, I saw an advert for the free podcasting creator, Anchor, and thought I’d give it a shot.

Several coffees later and some playing about with low-budget graphics and ta-da! A podcast was born:

(Before you say anything, I really cannot stress the low budget-ness of this production. Low budget in the sense there is none.)

Who knows what will become of this, but basically it’s me talking to myself for up to half an hour and in episode one I talk about what lead me to start writing a blog. If you enjoy the concept of a one-woman natter then you’re in for a right royal treat.

I honestly could not be selling this venture harder if I tried. It’s just something I’m giving a go at for a bit of fun.

“My Housemate’s a Mermaid – The Podcast” available on Spotify

Jumping back to 2025…

Surprise, surprise, it didn’t catch on and after forcing myself through four recordings I stopped podcasting and went back to pure writing. I think as much as anything it was the realisation that podcasting with free software is difficult (in that I found the free to use software incredibly limiting and of overall poor production value).

I’m currently in the process of getting the original recordings saved (would you believe it, the platform appears to give podcast owners no access to downloading their own work once published).

For now, enjoy the bittersweet car crash that was the MHAM podcast and who knows, maybe I’ll revive it one day on better terms.

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Alice’s Funding Page

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And then I panicked with the courgette (zucchini)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, Culture, food, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

Hello, present-day Alice here. I found this post deep in my draft archives, 2021 deep. On one hand I have no idea why it never got posted, and on the other hand I have every idea.

While some things have changed since this was first drafted (notably the fact I was very much single in 2021), you’ll be pleased to know the cooking skills are still as horrific now as they were then. I did it then, and I have no doubt I’d do it all over again if given half the chance…and a courgette.

So, that in mind, enjoy. AEB

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You know how when someone says they’re a fat person in a skinny person’s body, you nod along? Well, I am that person, the one who doesn’t understand how she’s not yet stuck in a doorway.

I honestly think the only reason I’m still a healthy weight is be because I’m a slave in the Matrix, and the aliens are milking me for battery juice. (It’s a normal thought process to have, right?)

Take this evening and my portion control when it comes to this mass-produced Quorn Spaghetti Bolognese:

(FYI, not a vegetarian, just trying to do my bit for the planet…and stop Paul McCartney coming after me.)

And yes, there are also frozen vegetables in there, but let’s not dwell on the lengths I go to to ‘stodge-out’ a meal.

The thing is, it was a perfectly normal* (*Alice’s version of normal) meal. But then I had this courgette. And the courgette was on the turn (it was a little bit squidgy), but it was something Mumma B had given to me, so I was determined to not let it go to waste. But the mince-stuff was already cooked and rapidly burning.

Basically, I panicked.

I hurry-sliced the courgette, coated it in black pepper, drowned it in olive oil and then threw it in the oven. I don’t know why, I just did. And even as I type this, I am very much aware this is an Alice-world problem.

Anyway, about ten minutes later (Married at First Sight was on and I may have got distracted), I retrieved the cooked-baked mush that was once a courgette and dolloped it onto my dinner plate. By now the pasta was stodgy and the mince mostly burnt on the bottom of the pan. To add to this, I didn’t quite feel satisfied that the first picture illustrated the large portion of food I had on my plate. So what did I do?

Yes, that’s right, I compared it to the size of a teabag.

This, this is what I do for content. Jeeze.

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“The Alice Show”

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) comedy, Cotswolds, Humor, Humour, Swindon, Travel, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , , , ,

I’ve been going through old video material. Some it used for assorted MHAM posts, others filmed in the moment, yet never used. (Believe it or not, even I have a version of a cutting room floor!)

After conducting an even deeper dig into the Alice archives, I’ve pulled together a compilation video of clips, both seen and unseen. Where possible, I’ve tried to piece together when content was originally filmed and overlay it into each clip. I had more than this, but at 11 minutes long I felt the video was already pushing it beyond the five minutes I’d originally planned (maybe in the future there could be a sequel).

It’s a little bit of a vanity project, but one which I hope some of you may get a chuckle out of.

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Alice’s Funding Page

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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Alice’s Funding Page

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Something to Lift Your Morning

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Humour, Music, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

For anyone looking for a pick-me-up, this is rather quite blissful.

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Could you spare a dollar or two? Donate here!

Alice’s Funding Page

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An Earful of ELO and Bitter Tea: Why I Write

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Commission, Culture, Event, Humour, Literature, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

What do you picture when you think of the writer? A recluse, working in the half-light of winter or in the sun-kissed parklands of summer? Novel thoughts that flow through dainty calligraphy on tanned pages? Web string ideas that will one day sit proud and hardbacked in Waterstones or Foyles. Half an hour to transpose to pixel, twelve weeks to complete, another month or two for luck.

Ha.

If that’s the vision, let me grace you with the reality, as I find myself propped in a generic coffee shop. The table is scratched as a post, the air sticky and the green chair worn away to the bare threads. There is only one word for it, uninviting. But what does it matter? My leggings are peppered with rips and holes anyway, the stains and the marks, it’ll wash out.

A train goes past, one of those piddly little things that carry children at walking pace, no, slower than that, a snail’s. The driver sounds its electric toot-toot as it crawls by, my right ear left ringing while my left is pumped with coffee grinding and the tinny music of overhead Electric Light Orchestra. The best ambiance £2.25 of tea can buy. I sip the cold fluid with a grimace, bitter and stewed.

It’s gone 18:00, my hair is wet with grease and my young face slightly more etched from another exhaustive day at the office-come-dining table. Eyes swollen, fingers twisted. I worked through lunch, which every psychologist from here to Timbuktu will say is a one-way trip to an early grave, but the extra hour of toil then means an extra hour of freedom now. A fragment of bliss with a half-eye on time. Later, a stranger beckons at my door to collect dusty offcuts from my garage; he won’t negotiate on the timings and I really could do with that £20.

Writers are leather beaters, we take the skin of an idea and scrape, beat and dunk until that piece of flesh returns gold. Sometimes our elbows linger for too long in foul-smelling liquids that the only thing golden is our stained skin, saturated with stench.

Write. Write harder and faster and quicker and smarter and eloquently, until your fingertip pads run smooth and your skin cracks with effort. That’s what writing is. I’d consider myself a very successful woman indeed if I were ever to stumble across my work in a library or charity shop. Maybe that makes me simplistic, or maybe that makes me even more of a dreamer. I scrub my manuscript some more.

I started putting keyboard to laptop in 2014 on little more than a whim and utter boredom, to fill lonely nights in a strange town I barely knew. Eight years later I find myself plagued with a parasitic urge I can barely comprehend. What time is it? When did I last eat? How long before the staff spot my empty cup and kick me to the curb?

I don’t write because I want to, I write because it is an addiction. Leave hollow hope be for there is nothing to be saved.

My colourless eyes glance sideward as the same empty train edges closer once more.

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This piece was kindly sponsored by Ben Miller, who spotted my business card on a noticeboard and commissioned me to write a post on “Why I Write”.

Please sponsor me to keep doing what I love by donating here: Alice’s Funding Page

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Writing Retreat in the New Forest *VIDEO*

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Book, British, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Staycation, Travel, Uncategorized, Vacation, Writing, Young Professional , ,

Video of my recent five-day break in the New Forest, England. I went out specifically to focus on writing and while it didn’t quite turn out entirely as I’d hoped, I had a very relaxed time in beautiful surroundings.

Until the next time!

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Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

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“Cleaning-Up the Microwave” (a Chemical Fume-Induced Song)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, comedy, Event, House, How To, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Music, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

From the makers of That’s When the Cleaning Fumes Got to Me, I present me, cleaning the microwave with equally questionable methods.

If it’s not the fact I forgot to turn the mircowave off (apparently it’s not safe), it’s the realisation afterwards of the potential effects those fumes were having on me.

But still, at least the microwave is clean now.

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Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**

Best Fashion Purchase of 2022* (*So Far)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Event, family, fashion, Humor, Humour, love, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Review, shopping, Social Media, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , , ,

Check out this beautiful, hand-made, Japanese silk face covering I just purchased from KatyBeesDesignStudio, on Etsy.

Who needs makeup and filters when you can look this damn fine? (And/or have something covering half your face anyway.) PS – hair was doing its own thing that day, it could not be tamed for love nor a litre of hair-care products.

It’s so incredibly comfy to wear and comes fitted with a top metal strip and slot-in space for a removeable air filter, should you wish to have one. Even before I’d had chance to put it on, I felt like an utter princess from the packaging presentation.

As well as the face covering (delivered in a rainbow pager bag), she sent me an air filter in a drawstring bag and some cute trinkets in a little drawstring pouch. You know how I get over little trinket items. It really was the icing on the cake

Katy hasn’t sponsored me to write this post but it’s been a long two years and it’s been a while since I got excited over something as mundane as a face covering. I simply had to rave about it.

Link: KatyBeesDesignStudio on Etsy

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Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**

New Year, New Job

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, comedy, Event, job, Mellennial, Mermaid, New Year, News, Nonfiction, Office, Project Management, Prompt, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

So, here’s news; I have a new job, in a new company (but still within the financial services sector – in case any of you were worried of me jumping the sector-ship).

Just a little bit smug/proud of myself. A little.

Nothing encapsulates this glorious news better (/brings me back down a peg) than this card sent to me by a dear friend. The message inside is wonderful, it’s all incredibly heartful, only, he didn’t realise it was one of those personalised cards you’re meant to edit beforehand.

(My family are now refusing to call me anything other than Stacey Peterson.)

Brilliant.

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Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

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