A lil’ life reminder happened at Halloween, an occasion I find difficult to embrace.
I pondered on twitter what the equivalent to “Bah humbug!” would be, as a way of showing my disdain for the whole ghost and ghoul shebang, and the best suggestion was “Boo humbug!” which I thought was perfect.

However, unlike the McFly song, its not all about me, I’m the mother of 3 young children who happen to like Halloween, and that’s the problem;

Every year I see spooky sections pop up in supermarkets late September and tut tut to myself about how it’s way too early to be buying Halloween bit and bobs.

I think I’m subconsciously still holding out for an Indian summer – (“Ha! Look how hot and clammy they are in their vampire cloaks” I’d snigger, wiping solero drips off my tankini)

So September rolls into early October and still I stubbornly refuse to browse the rails for outfits the kids will want to wear for trick or treating. I put off the idea of decorating the outside of the house cos its JUST TOO SOON.
As is its want, mid-October follows and soon becomes late October and now I’m not taking action for different reasons; I know I’ve left it too late so I’m freaking out and almost daring myself to be even more useless.
I’m knocking on the door of my own mind and when it opens I’m shouting “Trick!” and lobbing flour at my failure to be a good mum and be organised for Halloween.

On the morning of the 31st I tell myself I’ll be spectacular at bonfire night and make Christmas the most magical ever.
Easter will be a smash, as will Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Eid.

Valentines I’ll paint the back lawn red and land a heart shaped air balloon on it containing candy pink bunnies and actual cherubs; if only I can be forgiven for being so rubbish at Halloween.

However, there is an eerie glow at the end of the tunnel: the pressure is relieved slightly by my eldest daughter going to her dad’s for the night which leaves just the 2 children to disappoint. My 4 year old soon, who, uninspired by his mothers failure to get him geared up for a spooktacular evening, begrudgingly agrees to go trick or treating but only if he can wear his fireman trousers (which have an undeniable hint of binman trew about them), a superman cape and minimal make-up.
My 2 year old daughter won’t wear make up or even go as a witch, opting for a very cute Minnie mouse outfit over her leggings and an illuminous lime green hoodie.
The effect is not so much scary as just puzzling; people open their doors to see the super-bin-man and the nu-rave Disney character, and behind them, their mum and dad, looking faintly embarrassed, and quite rightly so.

My more real happiness these days comes from all the rich fruits of my life, not just grapes.

So from grapes to gripes, if you will, because even though my happiness cup overfloweth I’m about to temporarily slosh the contents down the drain, just because I feel like it.

If ITV2 were to make a half-hour special out of my current frame of mind, they might not call it “When Saras turn bad” but it could easily be “When Saras get miffed”, possibly with Jamie Theakston doing the somber voiceover.

Here are my top 5 most annoying things. Thing that not only get my goat, but then tie my goat up, shove it in a car boot, tickle it and call it names.

I’ve decided to do this list because in the car on the way home from school my son was telling me from the backseat the story of how he fell over in the playground at school, and to empathise I said “falling over is one of my top 5 worst things to happen on a daily basis”. At this point, Lola, 8, front seat, piped up, ‘What’s the other 4?” to which I immediately replied “falling out of a plane, wrestling a snake, eating a poo cake and kissing a stuffed monkey”

None of those are true (though admittedly they’re not ideal occurrences) so I thought I’d share my true list; or to be more accurate, this week’s list as they’re all heavily influenced by the events of the last few days.

1) Spoiler rage on twitter.

Tuesday night and a whopping 6.5 million people tune into the final of Great British Bake-off. I am one of them. A large chunk (Slice? Mouthful? Mmm cake) of that audience take to twitter to discuss the goings on of each round and eventually when the winner is announced, we all congratulate John the champion in our tweets.

Then they come. Seeping up through the drains of twitter, like a reverse lemon drizzle cake, drying out and curling up the edges of social media; they are the twitter spoiler moaners.

“thanks Sara! I’m in traffic/in the pub/ in outer space/ stuck at the office/ stuck up my own backside, so cant watch the show til later but now YOU’VE spoiled it”

Really? Errr… Hang on a muffin-munchin minute, surely the responsibility to keep yourself from finding out the winner/murderer/bride/loser/evictee on your favourite TV show lies with you?

As far as I’m concerned if you come onto social networks after a big event you’ve recorded for later you’re a fool, and only have yourself to blame.

One year I couldn’t watch the Apprentice final til the following night so for 24 hours I studiously avoided all TV and radio news, newspapers, twitter and conversations with other humans. I basically sat rocking in the corner of a darkened room, wearing ear muffs til the time came for me to watch it.

I didn’t expect 8 million other people to not discuss it until I’d given the all-clear.

No word of a lie, on bake-off night one woman tweeted to say she was working in Cambodia and was saving the whole series til her return next year but id just ruined it!

What’s the point of social media if we can’t be social and discuss stuff that’s happening there and then? I love feeling like I’ve got half a million people watching the telly with me on a massive sofa.

Its pretty pointless if we all have to sit there in silence, just in case Julie from Dumfries is working a late shift.

2) Bending your thumb nail back. Or your finger nail. It’s the sort of minor injury that feels so major it takes your breath away. I did it today. Half leaning into the back seat of the car on the school run, my lower body in the backdraft of shiny 4x4s whizzing past inches from my ankles. One clip of the door by the wing mirror of a white van and my head will be smashed on both sides, like an Audi nutcracker, my head being the nut. These thoughts go through my mind as I fumble with my daughters car seat buckle, using feel only, my eyes busy watching out for white vans. It always feels like a low-budget action movie. I’m Bruce Willis in a dirty white vest, but instead of diffusing a bomb on a 747, I’m just strapping in a narky two year old with a slight temperature.

And that’s when it happens. I push too hard with my thumb, it slips off the buckle and my nail is pushed and lifted back at high speed. The blood and the bruise appears under the nail immediately and I look heavenward to Vauxhallzafira, patron saint of school run mums and beg for the strength to continue.

3) Burning dinner. Sure, honey roast parsnips were a bit ambitious when trying to finish writing a newspaper article, get the kids swimming gear together and referee various outbreaks of violence between the children but still. Annoying. The honey burnt, the sugar caught, the house smelt acrid. Lola climbed onto a chair and wafted a tea towel under the smoke alarm while my son hollered at me for a biscuit.

4) Inappropriate moments of biscuit demandage.

We could be on a runaway train, hurtling down a ravine, and my four year old son would still demand a custard cream over the defeaning roar of twisting metal and breaking glass.  In his eyes, there is no such thing as “a bad time to ask for a biscuit” and that includes, in his sleep, during a swimming lesson and mid parsnip-burning drama.

5) winter flies.

You know the ones, the size of a small prune and black as night. They are listless and slow. They don’t zip by like their summer cousins, they glide like planes in a holding pattern over Heathrow. They almost bump into you. They hide in your room then just as you’re dropping off they emerge to do a fly fly-by past your ear. Eventually, in an eerie version of suicide by cop, they wind you up then pause on a flat service, wanting you to end it all for them, bracing themselves for the sweet release brought by a rolled up Sunday suppliment, sending them to fly heaven, where once again they’re fast.

Sound asleep, asleep, snoozing, dozing, dreaming, snuggling, snuffling, snoring, unconscious.

Instead I’ve been awake since Oh-balls-its-only5 o’clock. Recently my body clock has been faffed about with to such an extent that in fact its now more like a trippy Alice in Wonderland timepiece where the hands travel in opposite directions and the numbers have melted.

Last week I was rising at 3.30am to stand in for Vanessa Feltz on her radio2 early breakfast show.

On the Friday I also covered Fearne Cotton’s Radio1 show straight after, it was all rather beautifully timed as I could pop home between the two shows and do the school run. The children quickly adapted to daddy dressing them and then mummy arriving home through the front door to make breakfast and take them to school.

Only the first morning did they seem confused, so I just said I’ve been working.

I didn’t explain where though so for all I know they might think I’d been dancing for pennies in a Soho bar.

My career is currently like an open marriage. I’ve been married to radio1 for about 14 years but recently I’ve been enjoying a few snatched hours with my new love interest, Radio2; they both know about each other and are pretty relaxed about it. Heck, they’ve even helped organize the trysts, and like I say, on friday I flounced into radio1 with my hair all mussed up and still smelling of 2 and 1 didn’t bat an eyelid.

Just to add to the potent mix of work commitments this week I also found myself DJing a freshers gig at Bath Spa uni on Friday night, thus meaning instead of getting up at 3.30am I found myself getting to bed at that time. No wonder I’m awake now.

Over the past couple of months, rain has quickly become an everyday part of our lives. There’s a fabulous reason for this, there’s been some kind of kink in the weather system which means every person in the country has had their own little cloud floating over their heads cartoon-style, ready to dump two paddling pools’ worth of grey rain over them at least once every 24 hours. The rain itself is huge, big fat cherry sized blobs of rain. It’s interesting how people quickly adapt to new stuff. Like the dog guffing, mild road-rage and strong tea, I added “heavy rain” to my list of “things that feature in my life every day”

It seriously felt as though I was living somewhere tropical. But without the warmth or the fruity drinks.

Anyway luckily the kids didn’t give a monkeys about the rain. Where we were there were bikes, swimming pools, pizza and so many cute wild baby rabbits hopping about the forest pathways I secretly suspected the Centerparc’s manager was secretly breeding cute bunnies to release by the boxful near all the newcomers’ lodges. In the oft-repeated mantra of the diamond jubilee commentators, the kids weren’t going to “let a bit of rain dampen their spirits.”

Things that occurred to me during last weeks 6 hours of driving:

-       Children are great. Ipads are great. Together, they’re beautiful, especially on long car journeys. Use of the Ipad at home is heavily regulated to prevent the kind of slack-jawed zombie look some kids get after too long gawping at the screen, a string of drool threatening to pool on the glowing tablet clutched in their hands. But on a lengthy shlep up the M1 and back they cant be beaten, and I know: When I was a lass, long car journeys were spent staring balefully out of the window as the greyness whizzed by. Motion sickness meant reading was a no-no so apart from the odd thrilling game of counting red cars I’d loll about, foot wrestling with my sister for backseat space, trading mild insults and opal fruit.

-       Children, like adults, don’t realise how loud they’re talking when they have headphones on.

-       Children, unlike adults, cannot fully grasp this fact, so holler inches from each other’s faces about the pro’s and cons of Ice Age 3.

-       If I had to spec my car all over again, a divider between the front and rear of the car would be really cool; like in the movies when a chauffer presses a button and a privacy blind slides into place, allowing the glamorous young couple to get amorous on the back seat of the stretch. In my case it’d be to block out the screeches of my children as tempers fray around junction 12. A noise proof dark screen would absolutely be top of my list.

-       Second would be a small coffee machine.

-       Hearing radio 2’s Jeremy Vine say “knobhead’ is hilarious. During a discussion on foul language at the football, he reels off a few mild expletives, with “knobhead” being the raciest. Hearing such a well-known, respected voice say such a word was really funny. Ben and I chuckle and it provides momentary relief from the squawking coming from the backseat.

-       Nuggets are good.  Reformed bits of chicken deep fried in batter and served in a small paper bag are not acceptable fayre at any other time apart from on a motorway journey. Lets call it the “ipad law”, seeing as normal rules and preferences are relaxed to such an extent that its almost a parallel universe, where staring glassy-eyed at cartoons whilst munching poultry-based bumholes ‘n’ elbows with the salt equivalent of the dead sea is positively encouraged.

There’s no place like home….but unpacking is a bitch

My masseuse arrived at 4pm to soothe my aching muscles, then hair, make-up and stylist rocked up just as my nutritionist was preparing my pre-party macrobiotic energy boosting youth smoothie containing nutmeg, the sick up of a newborn and some mountain goat poo.  After a mini colonic and a dash of perfume I left the house to a swirl of light applause from my adoring entourage.

Ok, I exaggerate. Just a bit. What happened was I bathed the kids, read stories and put them to bed. This left me 32 minutes to get ready. I tried not to get ratty with Lola when she insisted I help her sew an ornamental flower onto one of my old Alice bands. 26 minutes remaining.

My other half arrived home and, noticing I wasn’t holding any kind of pan, asked “what’s for dinner?” whilst trying to disguise the rising panic in his voice.

I then ran through a comprehensive list of possibilities starting with him cooking his speciality (omelette) and ending with “Or call a pizza”.

22 minutes. I pour a substantial glass of wine and head upstairs.

Wash my fringe under the tap. This evening’s look will be brought to you by the words “Dry”, “Shampoo” and “Concealer” .

I have a spot the size and texture of a large bran flake and the colour of a baboon’s arse on my face. It’s near my mouth, which is always a hot look.

If my face was a party then this spot has gatecrashed the fun and wont leave, no matter how much I glare at it. Not only will it not leave, its dancing on the tables and flashing its boobs whilst downing a fancy cocktail. It refuses to be concealed and the more make up I apply the more visible it becomes.I give up, chuck on a playsuit (2^nd time on so spritz the pits with perfume) and leg it out to my taxi.

My date is my sister-in-law Cathy. Last time we were out she got squiffed and kicked off her shoes at the book launch for Jeremy Vine’s autobiography. Surrounded by radio 2 folks and various newsreaders she happily stood chatting to Jeremy’s brother Tim in her bare feet as George Alagiyah strolled past. I have high hopes for fun tonight.

En route I’ve worked out that due to the positioning of the bran flake if I smile widely enough it sort of gets folded away under a crease of skin. Kinda like one of those family cars that have lots of hidden storage compartments, but instead of baby wipes or travel sweets I’m stashing away a massive spot. As a consequence I grin inanely at the waiting photographers like I’ve just won the Euromillions, someone’s put something in my tea or I’ve got a banana sideways in my gob.

The event itself is in a huge place in Battersea and is a massive fundraising success. Lots of successful businessmen come and spend their spondoolies bidding in an auction, buying raffle tickets and if they’re lucky having a pic taken with a half-sozzled minor celebrity and her spot.

High points of the nights include having a big ol’ gossip with Louis Spence (who I don’t know very well but is so lovely) and his friends and Cathy and I drunkenly dancing to Beyonce in a bid to support Henry Holland, DJ for the night.

My head hit the pillow just after midnight and when I woke with the alarm at 6.30 I thought I’d been miraculously cured of my short-sightedness only to immediately realise with a groan I’d slept in my contact lenses.

With a banging head, breath of an elderly wolf and eyes the size of pistachios I tackle the day.

I was expected in Newmarket at 9am for a fitness and riding assessment at the British Racing School. This is all ahead of me partaking for the second year running in a 6 furlong horse race on ladies day at Glorious Goodwood in August.

The test was to make sure I could trot, canter, gallop and (perhaps most crucially) stop a racehorse. The fitness assessment was, as the name suggests, to assess my fitness. I approached the fitness part making two school boy errors: I didn’t eat until I was about half an hour away when, absolutely starvatious I screeched into a services and purchased a frothy coffee and a large bacon bap. I don’t know much about top athletes but I think its safe to assume that 30 minutes before partaking in a gruelling training session they don’t wolf a greasy butty the size of a steering wheel.

I compounded this by forgetting my gym gear; I had to do sit ups, squats, the plank and rowing machine in very skinny jeans and high tops. By the time we had to head from the boiling hot little gym room to the outdoor pitch to take part in a beep test, I could’ve done with a beep or two myself to block out the fruity language as I cursed my jeans, the blazing sun and my own stupidity.

The trainer was a huge but very friendly Isreali guy called Yariv. I was taking the test alongside Edie Campbell: Supermodel, horse owner and to add insult to those two injuries, she has the cheek to be a good fifteen years younger than me. She’d also forgotten her games kit but whinged less than me.

the thumbs-up and thrilled grin are brought to you by the words “irony”, “naffed” and “off” 

Edie won the race last year and is blessed with a competitive streak as wide and lush as Elton John’s back lawn.  She probably was centre in her netball team and captained the hockey. I was goal-keeper in netball and made up the numbers in the rest of the teams.

She’s a very nice girl and is in no way responsible for the Teenitus that I was suddenly struck down by; but when I’m in the presence of competitive people I shrink back into my shell and time travel to my insecure 14 year old self.

I’m once again in Bolton, on a windswept school running track, the slow one with wonky legs, trailing behind the rest on the athletics field, hindered by an un-aerodynamic large forehead and knock knees. I could see my games teacher tut-tutting as I sulkily stomped last over the finishing line.

Back to present day and I’m left pondering that some people really up the ante when confronted with competition, they thrive on it.

I’m the opposite. With my bottom lip protruding like an inflatable house brick I sulked and swore my way through the rest of the assessment.

I’m not a natural sportsperson. I can’t imagine Muhammad Ali whinging to his trainer that his opponent was being too competitive and then sulking ‘cos he’d forgotten his favourite gloves.

The riding part wasn’t great either; I hated the safety stirrups, which ironically kept slipping and making me feel unsafe. I struggled to correct my foot positioning and gave up in the end, just concentrating on staying on. The poor horse was confused by my faffing about and kept taking off with me a bit.

I left with a heavy heart and manky jeans. I treated myself to a little cry. It’s freaky how a confident, independent, relatively successful woman and mother of 3 can be reduced so easily to a teary mardy-arse teen, riddled with old insecurities.

Can’t wait to get up to my usual yard first thing tomorrow morning and get my confidence back up. And I’m gonna save the bacon til after.

The 3 things I felt were emotions:

The first being frustration.  This morning I circled outside the shops of Brent cross shopping centre, staring balefully at the “Sale” signs and smiling wistfully at the other womenfolk I could see mere metres away, rifling intently through the “£10 and under” rail.

They didn’t notice me, a lonely ghost of a woman, as they were too busy being moments away from finding the perfect pencil skirt.If they’d paused to listen though, they would have heard the deafening hum of my visa debit card throbbing inside my pocket.

I couldn’t even enter the store, it was pointless.I was pushing a buggy containing my 2 year old daughter and in my right hand was the small squishy mitt of my 4 year old son. Both children were in quite compliant moods, all the more reason to avoid a quick browse and risk ruining their sunny demeanors.

I remember only too well the horror of being under 5 and my mum dragging me round Bolton’s indoor fruit and veg market.

I was hip height to the huge herd of Boltonian housewives as they moved as one, a mass throng of corned-beef legs and matronly bosoms, as they jostled and surged forward in their quest to find the cheapest cauliflower.

Admittedly today was more cardis than caulis but as I circled like a hungry aquarium shark watching plump school kids through the glass, my rail of dreams faded before my eyes and we headed to Boots for kids toothpaste.

2. The second emotion is embarrassment. I keep seeing my neighbour in the local pool. He’s a distinguished gentleman of pensionable age, quietly spoken who tends his garden and always has a smile when he passes.                                                                                                                                                 Which is why it’s always faintly mortifying when I see him crawl towards me through the azure chlorine haze as I perform my ungainly breaststroke.

On the street we’d call out a neighbourly “Hello!” but no such pleasantries happen in the pool.

In fact, a neat “double blank” was performed this evening proving we’re both as equally uncomfortable seeing each other soggy-fringed in small Lycra swimwear.

I don’t want to see my neighbour’s wibbly thighs and silver-haired chest and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to see mine.

At least I know him I suppose.

Being recognised by complete strangers in the pool is my 3^rd “Worst place to hear the words ‘you’re that Sara Cox aren’t you?’ ”; my second is in a busy pub loo of hammered hens when I’m sober and my first was during an antenatal examination when the consultant asked me who I thought would be the number1 record that week* whilst feeling for the baby’s head.

*It was Britney spears and “Toxic”, chart fans.

3. What I’m feeling at this very moment, is smugness.

I’m smuggled up in a smuggy smug smog of muggy smuggledom.

And it feels great.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I’m in bed. The wind is whistling outside and the rain is lashing the window.My other half is out with all our pals celebrating the birthday of a notoriously fun club night known as yoyo.

All the crew will be there, but I’m in for Fearne Cotton tomorrow at 10am so joining them was never an option.

I’m also reporting live from Radio 1s biggest ever event, the humungous Hackney weekend on Saturday and Sunday 10am-1pm with my Bolton bro Vernon Kay, so need to keep myself on sparkling form, plus on Sunday at midnight I then hop over the airwaves onto radio 2 for a couple of hours before reappearing on radio1 at 10am Monday morning.

Feeling jaded is not an option over the next four days, so I’ve hopped aboard the sensible wagon to Teetotalsville and falling off is not an option.

I don’t envy what my other half has in store tomorrow: sore head, furry tongue and internal organs sweating booze and cadged fags.

I’m pleased they’ll have a swell time tonight but I’m glad I’m in bed, rocketing off the smug-o-meter scale.

Ok, I confess, that’s not my usual Saturday morning. Normally the five of us fester in our big bed in a sea of bagel crumbs and milk watching something by Disney.

This was not to be on Saturday and I blame Warhorse.

I went to a charity screening of the film months ago and in amongst the specially invited guests including Chelsea pensioners and wounded servicemen  was Company Sergeant Major Neil Lawrie, who asked me if, in the dim and distant future of summer I’d help boost morale by leading the troops in their morning exercises on the morning of the trooping of the colour in June.

I agreed, thinking that it’d probably never happen. Summer, after all was such a hazy and faraway dream (and still is in fact) plus anything could happen before June. I could win the lottery and be living on my own Island somewhere far away from Buckingham palace.

That ended up not happening so I found myself (along with my body combat teacher Christina, to whom I’m eternally grateful) standing on the parade ground at Wellington barracks in my gym at 6.30am last week in front of 200 troops.

Also joining us was three page 3 lovelies from The Sun newspaper. I wasn’t expecting them to be there but didn’t really mind. The warm glow of their fake tans and the jiggle of their norks as they tried to exercise in wedge trainers and under the weight of their false eyelashes, certainly brightened up the troops’ morning and no doubt boosted other bits of the soldiers, aside from their morale.

As The Sun photographer clicked away with his camera I pondered not for the first time, how dim I was to turn up entirely make-up free and with scraped back slightly greasy hair.

No matter. I wasn’t there to provide glamour. The glamour girls were.

Christina and I were there to put the soldiers through a highly disciplined, synchronized session of Body Combat.

What actually happened was the troops jumped around to our music and aside from a few at the front who joined in a bit to be polite, most just danced and shouted and ogled the afore-mentioned jiggling norks.

It was all good though, as the whole point was for the troops to let off a bit of steam before the long grueling day ahead, performing in front of the Royal Family and millions of television viewers around the world, in the Trooping of the Colour.

Thanks to all the lads I met who were incredibly polite and friendly: F company Scots guards, Nijmegan company Grenadier guards and seven company Coldstream guards; Company Sergeant Major Neil Lawrie and especially  my amazing combat teacher Christina (pictured below)

Well, no more.

Saturday was streamlined. It was specific. For a starters it was girls only, which immediately slashed numbers dramatically; thanks to a male dominant gene in the other half’s family the kids have boy cousins by the dozens (ok not that many, it just rhymed in a really cool way) so their absence freed up a large portion of the room and of mini sausages.

The sibling rule may apply at nice schools, but it didn’t wash here on Saturday, which meant that apart from my other two offspring there were no random toddlers toddling about or bored 10 year olds slumped in the corner wishing they were elsewhere.

Less children means less parents too, and most of the mums quite rightly “dropped and ran” to take advantage of having one less child to shout at for a couple of hours.

The bash was a huge success and instead of me dashing about with egg mayonnaise in my fringe feeding, watering and entertaining a houseful of various generations I got to watch the brilliant entertainer Melissa teach the girls dance routine to vaguely inappropriate dance tracks (LMFAO’s “sexy and I know it”, anyone?) whilst I added the finishing touches to the modest yet delicious finger buffet.

scooby is saying "Yoikes!" on the cake. he doesn't say that. because it isn't actually a word. i accidentally made it up.

When Italians are slightly harassed and stressed it comes across as being passionate.

Filming a documentary in Naples a few months ago, my producer was driving our little hired Volkswagen along the winding mountain roads at a sedate pace clearly not acceptable to the drivers of the huge wagons who were breathing down our necks.

We were the tortoise to their hares, except these hares had moustaches and were driving ten tons of truck. As they overtook they’d be glaring down at us mouthing intricate Italian expletives but because they did it whilst joining the tip of their thumb with the tips of their fingers, they looked passionate and not that intimidating.

Like they’d just tasted mama’s special pasta sauce.

I’m trying to make this Italian restaurant my local. I’m determined to make it the one place I go to and when I walk in they ask me if I want my “usual” or maybe the chef will come out and show me a nice bit of halibut he recommends. The manager will ask how the kids are as I’m whisked to my favourite table. The only challenge is that it isn’t actually local, it’s in town, four miles away.

The only restaurants truly local to me are a very lovely Japanese place which is too expensive to be my local. (I’m sorry you have blisters on your feet darling daughter but mummy had to decide between sushi or shoes, and the sashimi platter IS delicious..”) and a fried chicken joint (“hey podge, usual 6 pieces and a side of blocked artery?”)

I don’t know why I’ve become fascinated with creating a special place like this. I’m worried I’m forcing it a bit and a place becomes your regular haunt more organically; it just happens. Like a lucky number or love at first sight, it can’t be forced.

Either way, when I took my visiting mum in the other day searching out carbs after an unexpectedly fruity night on the sauce, as I left the manager shouted “Bye Sara!” so maybe I’m half way there.