Children are just unpredictable. My sons are at this amazing age when everything is possible. From flying to the moon on a kitchen stool to inventing a magic ball powerful enough to provide the whole city with unlimited energy.

We have been working really hard for The Big Cake Show and they are so excited all the time that it is literally impossible to relax them at bed time.

Yesterday, it was a bit too late. And they were both in my bed chatting non-stop. Sometimes, the things they are telling me are the kind of things that are so interesting and fantastic that rather than try and stop them, I encourage them to keep talking so I can hear more about whatever the story is about. But it was getting really late and we all needed a good rest, so I asked them to calm down and try to sleep while I went to brush my teeth.

Scrumptious Star Bread

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to do a guest lecture at the Business School at Exeter Uni. I was absolutely shocked and excited and nervous and overwhelmed. Preserving fruit is one thing and talking in front of a lot of 4th year business students about creativity and entrepreneurship is a an altogether different beast.

I was unsure of the kind of things they were expecting me to say, so I thought I should say the kind of things that I would have loved to listen to when I was at Uni. Stories about failure, about struggling, about real life. Stories about how life changes and you can choose between letting yourself down or face up to the challenge and go for it. Stories about why we are all wrongly told that success is the only way forward. So instead of going through sleep-inducing theories and approaches from the different schools of thought, I just told them the truth about The Tiny Marmalade.

Marble Mini Loaves

Technology I hate you. I abhor you so much that I going to blog it. To tweet it. To Facebook it. I am even going to gloogleplus it. Whatever that is. To let everyone know how deep my hate is.

I thought I could rely on you. I really did. I entrusted you my best kept secrets. We were together in the good times, as when you showed me that photography digital edition could be a 5 minutes job. Also in the bad ones, as when someone thought that giving me a Windows 7 mobile was a good idea.

I can still remember with excitement that day I discovered I could write "BOOBIES" in a calculator. I felt amazingly successful. The world was my oyster.

Super Zesty Lemon Snaps #12week

Experimentation has its limits. This is the lesson I learnt last weekend while I was pretending to be a super chef plotting the preparation of a recipe which would revolutionary modern cuisine as we know it. Oblivious to all reason, I wanted to innovate in a field in which I am not particularly adept, experiencing consistent and resounding failure: biscuit making.

Things were as follows.

Pate, Potato and Mushrooms Stuffed Aubergines

My other half and I have been wondering about buying a house for quite a long time now. We would like to have our very own space, our refuge. We would like to have that special place to build up family memories, to see our children grow, to grow older together. We dream of each room in it: which colour the walls will be, which kind of handles the kitchen units will have, whether or not blue is a good colour for the boys’ bedroom. Decisions, decisions.

We have been visiting some properties. Masses of properties actually. Some nice, some not really, and some that should have made the estate agents feel embarrassed of showing. Over the last couple of years we haven’t found that house that has made us think "that´s the one". Until a couple of weeks ago, when we visited one that ticked all the boxes, including maybe the most tricky one: the budget.

So we started the ball rolling and have come across the most painful, tedious, bureaucratic and long-winded process ever.

Life Changing Pancakes

Next week is Shrove Tuesday, or most commonly known as Pancake Day. This is something completely new to us that has been, however, rapidly incorporated into our family save-the-date calendar.

Before living in the UK not only had we never celebrated pancake day, but also I can´t remember preparing pancakes myself ever. Not that I don´t like them, but blame the pan, blame the recipe, I have only managed to prepare lumpy, chewy, bland and shapeless pancakes. So last year, to celebrate our first Pancake Day I bought one of those already made mixes (shame on me) that did the job but that´s it.

Valentine´s Heart Throbs

Thank you. I have so many things to be grateful for. Before meeting you I always laughed about love at first sight. And then it happened to me, with the most unexpected individual in the most mysterious way. Love is a strange thing, isn’t it? And there I was. Disoriented. Stunned. Bewildered. Like a fool, trying to make you realise I was there. We were really good friends. We laughed and shared our problem-free lives. We drank and danced and talked and walked through every single street of the city. We shared coconut wafers. We discovered the most amazing songs and went to every concert. We played board games. We discussed every single subject and we put the world to rights time and time again. And at some points I felt so scared of how perfect life was that I wanted to spoil it just to check I was still alive. I must admit I did it, trying to lessen the dizziness.