Book love

Each month I chat about what books I've been reading in my monthly Book Love feature.

Good Morning, Midnight - Jean Rhys 
 I've owned Good Morning, Midnight since I was at university, but have never gotten round to reading it before (even though it was one of my prescribed texts, sorry lecturers!). One lazy Sunday I was looking for a book to accompany me into town for a day of drinking coffee & mooching around second hand shops, and this jumped out at me. Oh, and how I fell in love. It's a haunting tale of a woman living in Paris, who has hit rock-bottom and is tearing herself apart through strange encounters, cheap hotels and too much wine. It's fairly short, but super intense and beautifully written.

Essays In Love - Alain de Botton
This book follows the story of a relationship: from a chance meeting on a plane, to anxiety and heartbreak. Each chapter reads like a philosophy paper, with the smallest moments being pondered over and subjected to intense thought and discussion. It's a bit twee, and I think you probably do have to be either loved up or slightly heartbroken to enjoy it, but I liked it!

Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut - Mike Mullane
I thought I needed to mix things up after my last two books, so I picked up a book that I bought absolutely ages ago (when I was last in Florida!). This is the memoir of an astronaut, Mike Mullane, who talks about his life as an astronaut... and is very, very blunt about what he thinks about NASA. I love a bit of space, and found it absolutely fascinating... you tend not to think about the politics, or office-life that exists behind sending people to the moon!

Patrick Ness - The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask & the Answer and Monsters of Men
I read the Chaos Walking trilogy for the first time late last year, and have already given in and re-read them again. They are just wonderful, amazing, beautiful books, and I love them so.

Outfit: denim & floral shirtdress

Say hello to my new favourite dress! The lovely folk at Debenhams invited me to review one of their dresses, so I decided to step a wee bit out of my comfort zone.

I picked this super sweet denim & floral H! by Henry Holland shirtdress. I normally shy away from things that button all the way up, because as cute as collars (and collar clips, swoon!) can be, I look a bit ridiculous with high-neck outfits. Instead I wore a black vest top under the dress, making it a wee bit more casual, but still cute!

The dress has a lovely floral panel on the shoulders, so I wore my hair up to properly show it off. You can't really see my nails, but they are dark grey with silver scalloping along the tips - they're kind of pretty but grungy, and aren't quite as harsh as jet black nails. 

It buttons all the way down & the skirt is really light and floaty, which is perfect for summery days. Sadly, because I live in Scotland (which is experiencing a NEVER-ENDING WINTER), I haven't had the chance to wear this in nice weather yet, but I can report that it looks good with black tights & stompy boots too.

I've also been wearing my elephant necklace (last seen here) almost non-stop, I love it! Hooray for pretty dresses.

How to: make chocolate, mint & avocado mousse

I like it when an intriguing email finds its way into my inbox.. and the AERO perfect pairing challenge was definitely that! To celebrate the relaunch of AERO Bubbles, I was challenged to think up my own perfect flavour pairing - the weirder the better.

Here's how I got on...

I'm going to admit, I was so quick to say - yes! chocolate! weird things! fun!- that it didn't actually dawn on me that I'd have to try and come up with something strange and, more importantly, eat that strange thing until a big box arrived at my door. 

Luckily, AERO sent out a heap of fun cooking things (thanks guys!) and a very beautiful copy of The Flavour Thesaurus to inspire me.

This is really the most BEAUTIFUL book, if you are into flavours or food at all I highly recommend it! It barely took any time at all before I saw the words "chocolate" (hello) and "avocado" (also, hello), and put strange thoughts such as beef-raspberry-coffee out of my head. 

I wanted to make something that I actually might want to eat, and that would fit on this blog... and a gooey, chocolately mousse sounded perfect.

Here's what I used:

• one large avocado
• 30g dark cocoa powder 
• 2 tbsps honey
• 2 tbsps fresh mint
• 4 tbsps milk
• 1 egg white, whipped
• 1 aero bar, grated

I like to be lazy when I can get away with it, and this is ridiculously easy. You just stick the avocado, cocoa, honey, mint and milk in a bowl, and give it a big whisk, making sure all of the lumps have disappeared! Then whisk your egg white, feel bad about not knowing what to do with the egg yolk, and gently fold the egg white into the mixture. This makes it light and fluffy and mousse-like!

Then spoon it into serving dishes of choice (I used tea cups and this recipe made two MASSIVE portions), grate some chocolate around the edge and leave it to sit in the fridge for an hour or two. When serving, add a few fresh mint leaves & you are good to go!

I was a bit nervous about how this would taste, but I was actually really pleasantly surprised! The avocado adds a lovely smooth texture to it, but the taste is alllll chocolate & mint (mine was perhaps a tad too minty, but I got carried away as I'd been growing it in my garden!). If I made it again I'd probably melt some dark chocolate too and add that to the mix, just to make it a wee bit more indulgent. Yum!

Disclaimer: AERO sent me a Perfect Pairing Cookery Kit to take part in this challenge.

Leopard wishlist

I've had the most horrible cold this weekend - it hit me completely out of the blue & has reduced me to a sniffly, moany mope (even when the sun was out, how unfair!). So to cheer myself up, here's some window shopping, blog-style.

I like leopard print, and am on a mission to have enough in my wardrobe so I can go out, head-to-toe in leopard one day (aka hairscarf-to-shoes - be warned pals, this will happen). I also like all of these things. That's about as much effort as you'll get from a sniffly, ill girl today!

Top row

Converse hi top trainers | Tote bag | Denim jacket

Bottom row

Belt | Dolly blouse | Heart socks

Super cute! Now cross your fingers for me please & hope my summer cold goes away quickly!

Magpie

I am a sucker for nice stationery, so when these notebooks popped up in my instagram feed I fell in love and pretty much immediately ordered some for myself. They are from Magpie - a London studio who design & manufacture all sorts of lovely things, with a British edge.

Their products are really sweet, but not too twee, and everything they make is vegan-friendly and cruelty-free. They also donate money to Cats Protection with each order! They are nice guys.

I went for J, fox & anchor notebooks and I LOVE them! They are quite small, but that just means they are perfect for throwing in a bag & having access to brilliant stationery at ALL times.

& look at all the other lovely things they do!

Top row

A-Z mug  | Chirpy side plates | Wildlife tea towels

Fauna cake tins | Game birdy espresso set | Whitby notebook