International Woman of Mystery

The week with my beloved is now over and I waved tearfully from the platform as his trained rolled off into the distance. OK, that's a lie, I went back to the car and we drove home because it was freezing and I was wearing leggings and there's a hole in the sole of my Ugg's.
We had a great time as per, and had a lovely shopping day in Brighton where we discovered a bakery that does gluten free cakes, but more on that later.
People often ask me  how The Boyf and I cope when we live so far apart, especially after going from being at uni together and sharing a flat for 3 years to not seeing each other for weeks on end, but to be honest aside from the fact we miss each other and obviously would rather be together in one place we actually appreciate each other much more when we see less of each other, sort of like Carrie and Big's arrangement in SATC2.
They say spontaneity is the spice of life, but I tend to thrive on routine and predictability, probably because The Other Bowel Problems are anything but. The Boyf is much the same (good match us!), and his visits tend to run on the same vein of shopping, dinner, DVDs and cooking, and it suits us down to the ground.
We had dinner out on Tuesday night and I got to finally wear my leopard print asos top that Ive been squirrelling away for a nice occasion and then Thursday we had a long leisurely day in Brighton, trotting round the Laines, drinking coffee and having lunch at Donatello's, where The Boyf stole my after dinner mint and I went nuts much to the amusement of the french couple sitting on the table next to us.
Down the Laines we discovered a fab little bakery called Cloud 9. I'm not sure how long its been there because I have the attention span of a gnat so it could have been there since the dawn of time, but I suspect its new. It was so cute inside and they did the yummiest choccy cake/brownie thing I have ever tasted (and you know how I feel about brownies) and also a few other gluten free bits and pieces. The girl who served us kindly let me take some snaps for my blog,which I've posted at the bottom for you viewing pleasure.
Saturday I awoke to find the ever-so-lovely Becky at Dietary Specials had popped a box of Tru Free (Dietary Specials sister company) mince pies in the post for me, which couldn't have come at a better time really since I discovered that Sainsbury's have well and truly ruined Xmas this year by stocking icing topped mince pies instead of the usual pastry tops ones. That's killed Christmas. I've got a little review lined up for the Tru Free mince pies though so stayed tuned.
I'm finally getting into the swing of preparations for Xmas now, and have written up a Kate's Master Christmas Plan which will hopefully keep me organised and on track with all my present giving, food making and card sending. Not that I'm generally unorganised but I like to have a list to keep me on the straight and narrow when theres lots to think about. I've cleaned out the news agents buying foodie mags for Xmas dinner ideas as well as home made gift ideas, the only trouble is I flick through them and get all excited for Xmas and then I cant sleep and when I do sleep I have nightmares that its Christmas morning and I haven't done any Christmas shopping. Dreadful.
Sunday was dominated by Formula 1, Motor GP and Rugby, none of which I have much interest in, expect maybe Formula 1 but that's mainly because my dad conditioned me to like it from a young age.
So I decided to whip up a round of cupcakes (what else) and also brew up a batch of mincemeat for my homemade mince pies. Accordingly to Nigella (whose has signed my copy of Domestic Goddess  by the way, just in case you missed my first overexcited post on the matter) you should make your mincemeat a good few weeks in advance of when your going to use it so that the flavours can infuse and so everything can get all nice and syrupy and lovely. It's a majorly easy recipe (do I ever do anything but?) and only takes around 30-40minutes. So after you have perused this post and the accompanying pictures, one of which is an ACTUAL picture of me on our way out to dinner, which I included as I was starting to feel like the Scarlet Pimpernel, international woman of mystery.

The Gruesome Twosome.

Cloud 9

To the right, the yummy gluten-free choccy cake.

Cloud 9

Cloud 9. I was never going to resist a pink bakery.

Reading material for my Xmas prep