One Night Stanzas

Remember my massive ‘before I turn 30 to-do list’? I’ve been doing particularly well on no. 21 — eating a ton of delicious vegan food! Here are just some of my recent edible discoveries (NB: they’re mostly cake)…

OK fine, not a new discovery, but this is my favourite thing to eat ever. Lovely Boyfriend’s own vegan thai cashew and peanut satay.

Also cooked by Lovely Boyfriend — aka my personal chef — were these Tibetan momos, or vegan dumplings. So good… and so pretty!

I tried a brand new banana bread recipe. Went pretty well!

Another new recipe for me was this East Coast Coffee Cake from the PPK. Crumbly!

This is Earthy’s vegan rhubarb and almond loaf. A m a z i n g with a nice cup of tea… something I want to try and recreate!

My first effort at vegan cookies (double chocolate), kind of half-made-up from an old non-vegan recipe. Pretty good but they need some more tinkering! (Like my Aynsley porcelain tea plate? Got it for 20p in a rummage box!)

I found out that Peter’s Yard do vegan pecan pie and I can’t believe I didn’t know that before!

Remember I was promised vegan options ‘coming soon’ when I went to the Secret Herb Garden last year? They delivered! This is vegan lemon tart… that’s a lone clove on the top, not a bug!

Vegan chocolate and almond cake at Henderson’s at St John’s… this fuelled me through a stint doing the door takings at Shore Poets!

Lastly, I’ve done a few versions of these chocolate and double-peanut-butter vegan cupcakes, as they’ve proved pretty popular…

…they’re chocolate sponge with molten peanut butter in the middle and peanut frosting. This is the ‘fluffy’ frosting…

…this is the smooth frosting.

Lovely Boyfriend’s reaction says it all!

Not bad for a year of eating…!

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

BREAKFAST

Goji, Goodramgate, York

Fully vegan? Nope, this is a veggie place with vegan options. But you can tell that they really care about veganism and vegans aren’t just an afterthought.
Specialism? They don’t have one — literally everything is brilliant. However, I’m going to go ahead and give them extra extra brownie points for having creative vegan breakfasts. A vegan breakfast (let alone a good vegan breakfast) is a rare thing.
Prices? Very reasonable.
Do I need to book? If you’re in York for only a short time and want to make sure you get to eat here, then yes. I have never booked but it’s always been super busy when I’ve been, and I’ve always been very lucky to arrive just as a table has come free.
Easy to find? Yes, it’s near the back of the Minster.
Accessible? Not really. The ground floor is up a step and then inside, the first floor dining area and loos are only accessed via a tiny, winding staircase. That’s York and it’s tall, narrow, listed buildings for you.
Best bit? It’s all great: lovely friendly staff (of course, it’s Yorkshire!), great meals at any time of day, great cake, nice space… it’s a magical place.
They could improve: this is a note for management. Hire more staff. Your waitstaff are all lovely but they always seem super frazzled! One more body could make all the difference!

LUNCH

The 78, Kelvinhaugh Street, Glasgow

Fully vegan? Yep!
Specialism? Burgers. This is very much a burger place. But they’re good burgers, and the specials change daily. That beast up there ^ is a mushroom and tarragon burger and OMG it was good.
Prices? Reasonable.
Do I need to book? I doubt it — they have loads of seats. Maybe on a weekend night for dinner as I can imagine it would get busy then.
Easy to find? Honestly? No. Lovely Boyfriend and I wandered around a bit in the rain before eventually getting there… and it’s a fairly long way from either a station or a Subway. There are buses along Argyll Street, though.
Accessible? Fully! Hooray!
Best bit? It’s a cool space: light and bright with lots of windows, but also somehow cozy. Great Glaswegian hospitality… oh, and they have vegan desserts, too, like chocolate brownie and sticky toffee pudding!
They could improve: nowt! Well done, The 78!

Stereo, Renfield Lane, Glasgow

Fully vegan? Yep!
Specialism? Piles and piles and piles of food. Also their chips are just a little big magical.
Prices? Reasonable.
Do I need to book? Possibly. I tend to go early evening and usually manage to get a seat, but it starts filling up rapidly after 6pm.
Easy to find? Ish. It’s right in the middle of Glasgow, literally a two-minute walk from Central Station. However, it’s also in an alleyway, and if you approach from a certain angle it looks perpetually closed. Give the doors a shove, though… they’re open!
Accessible? Nope, the alleyway is kinda dark and cobbled and narrow, and the restaurant itself is up a ton of steps. They do have unisex bathrooms though, which I appreciate!
Best bit? Eating in this place makes you feel super cool and with it, as you can throw a stone in any direction in this place and hit an art student, poet, or beardy hipster man in a lumberjack shirt. Personally, I like this. It’s good people watching. Plus, Stereo also has a venue downstairs which hosts painfully hip nights — the last thing I went to there was a circus-themed cabaret with loads of nudity (for some reason, they booked me to read poems there. I’ll admit, I was scared).
They could improve: the menu, maybe… it’s a tad limited. I go only occasionally. I’d appreciate some new options!

SUNDAY LUNCH

Norman’s Coach & Horses, off Greek Street, Soho, London

Fully vegan? Nope, this place is veggie and vegan. But like Goji above, veganism is very much part of the ethos and there are loads of vegan options.
Specialism? Their “tofush” and chips (pictured in the second photo above). It’s a tofu fish supper, and really very good.
Prices? Bordering on cheap, for London!
Do I need to book? We went on a Sunday at 1pm (classic Sunday lunch time), and there were free tables, so probably not.
Easy to find? Yep, it’s in the middle of Soho and near to various tube stations. We walked there from the South Bank and found it fine.
Accessible? Yes, although the bathrooms are not.
Best bit? I had the vegan Sunday roast, which is what that stuffed aubergine thing is.
They could improve: the staff. Sorry! I hate slagging people who work difficult jobs. But… smile and be nice, please! I know it’s London, but come on. You can do it.

Goji (again), see above.

I already praised these guys to the sky at breakfast, I know… but I just had to show you their vegan lentil loaf Sunday roast. It was perfect, folks. Get thee to York, already!

TAPAS & SHARING

Veggie Garden, Carrer des Angels, Barcelona

Fully vegan? Yes!
Specialism? Juices. They have literally hundreds of amazing juice, smoothie and shake options on the menu. Worth going there for this alone.
Prices? Cheap.
Do I need to book? Maybe. It does get busy around typical lunch/local dinner hours. I’ve now been three times — booked the first time and then chanced it the last two. If you’re eating at UK dinner time (e.g. before 8pm) though, you’re likely to be OK.
Easy to find? Yes. It’s near Liceu Metro, too, which is one of the major stations.
Accessible? Not really. Most of the seats are upstairs, but in good weather you can eat on the terrace outside. The bathrooms are very cramped.
Best bit? It’s one of those places where you can order anything and know that it’s going to be amazing. Even the guacamole is a cut above the usual. The staff are lovely, too, and are happy to put up with terrible Spanglish from the likes of me. Oh, and the walls are covered in amazing, brightly coloured murals!
They could improve: the loos are a bit grim. Nothing utterly gross, but you know, loo roll on the floor, no hand towels, stuff like that. Sorry, Veggie Garden!

El Piano, Grape Lane, York

Fully vegan? Yes, AND gluten free, too!
Specialism? Being FOOD SAINTS. Not only is everything vegan, cruelty free and gluten free, they also really value keeping their meals locally-sourced. Every dish has a circle next to it with a number inside, telling you what percentage of that meal was sourced within ten miles of the restaurant. Most of the dishes are 70% local or more.
Prices? Cheap. The portions are huge. You get so much bang for your buck here.
Do I need to book? YES. A thousand times yes. York folks are not stupid: they know this is the best place to eat in the entire county! It’s always been packed whenever I’ve been and I have always needed to book.
Easy to find? Yep, it’s a stone’s throw from the Minster.
Accessible? The ground floor is, yes. The loos, maybe not.
Best bit? Definitely the two sharing platters (one is pictured above). Their mains are also great… but the sharing platters give you chance to taste the whole range of amazing food they make.
They could improve: the desserts. I was legit shocked that a place that does such utterly amazing savoury food could turn out such average desserts! Perhaps my expectations were too high. But they do get brownie points for having desserts at all.

DINNER

Bonsai, Broughton St & Richmond St, Edinburgh

Fully vegan? Nope. This is actually your regular restaurant with plenty of meat and fish on the menu… they just have a lot of veggie things that also, happily, happen to be vegan!
Specialism? Sushi.
Prices? Reasonable.
Do I need to book? Only if you’re dining with a party of more than four, I’d say.
Easy to find? Yep.
Accessible? The Broughton Street one probably is, yes. I’ll hold up my hands and say I have never been to the Richmond Street one!
Best bit? The food is really lovely… it’s just the right amount of experimental, with cool specials like butternut squash maki, or oyster mushroom tempura. The service is also very fast and efficient, and the waitstaff are all lovely.
They could improve: more vegan specials on the specials board, more often! Most times I go all the specials are fish-adjacent.

Itadaki Zen, King’s Cross Road, London
(fun fact: they also have a seasonal outpost in, of all places, Oban!)

Fully vegan? Yes. In fact, this is the first all-vegan Japanese restaurant in the whole of Europe!
Specialism? Flavour-balancing. Seriously, the chefs here are magicians. Everything you eat tastes clean, crisp, never too salty or spicy or plain. The menu goes into detail about how they try to waste nothing and ask that diners do the same — they discourage the addition of soy sauce or wasabi to their sushi, because it doesn’t need it. And it really doesn’t! Every mouthful is perfect.
Prices? Very reasonable, especially for London, especially for food so good.
Do I need to book? Yes, always. The place is always full to the top, sometimes with a queue out the door.
Easy to find? Yes. Just remember it’s on King’s Cross Road, not Gray’s Inn Road. The two roads look very alike, as Lovely Boyfriend and I discover every time we go here!
Accessible? No, and it’s very small, too! Prepare to get a bit cozy with your fellow diners!
Best bit? The four-course set meals (we tried the Itadaki course and the Tempura course). You get an amazing starter, then sushi, then a bento box-ed main, then dessert, all for a very reasonable price, and it’s literally the perfect size for a meal. You leave feeling the most pleasant kind of full!
They could improve: the loos. Nothing terrible, but a bit scruffy.

COFFEE & CAKE

The Chocolate Tree, Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh

Fully vegan? No, but lots and lots of tasty vegan options. They value their vegan customers and some of the staff are vegan!
Specialism? They’re probably the only legitimate chocolatier (a company that makes their 100% of their chocolate themselves, from the bean) in the UK. Most companies who call themselves ‘chocolatiers’ are actually ‘confiseurs.’ In other words: these guys are serious chocolate specialists.
Prices? Very reasonable.
Do I need to book? Yes. The cafe recently cleared out some tables to make space for merch instead, so there are only about ten seats in the whole place. Booking is basically essential. However, if you can’t get a table you can always take your chocolate goodies to a bench on the nearby Bruntsfield Links — a favourite pasttime of mine!
Easy to find? Yes. It’s on tons of bus routes or you can take a nice stroll through the Meadows and then the Links to get there.
Accessible? Yes.
Best bit? Their hot chocolate drinks. That chocolate cake above is definitely lush, but it’s also impossible to finish a whole piece in one sitting and then walk away! The hot chocolates, however, come in lots of different flavours and levels of intensity and all of them can be made with soy milk. Yay! Oh, also, on a hot day not much beats their sorbet counter! Vegan chocolate sorbet, be mine.
They could improve: I’ll admit, I liked it better when there were more tables. Sigh.

RAW at La Suite West, Inverness Terrace, Kensington, London

Fully vegan? No, veggie — but with a big emphasis on vegan, dairy free and raw.
Specialism? Their all-vegan-all-the-time afternoon tea. I never dared to dream of such a thing existing!
Prices? OK, you knew this one was going to be pricey, right? Afternoon tea for two will set you back almost £50. But actually, as afternoon teas go, that isn’t bad — it compares favourably to the famous Balmoral one. And afternoon tea is a big meal… we left barely able to walk and we didn’t even finish everything!
Do I need to book? Nope. We did, but then the place was pretty quiet.
Easy to find? Yes — it’s a stone’s throw from Kensington Gardens and literally thirty seconds’ walk from the Bayswater tube.
Accessible? Fully!
Best bit? The coconut cream that came with the scones. I know that’s mega-specific, but it was that good.
They could improve: by turning the lights up a little! The mood lighting — not only in the restaurant, but also in the corridors when you’re trying to find the loo — is er, a little too moody! I like to be able to see the cake I am eating!

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

You may remember that #6 on my 30-before-30 epic ‘to do’ list was Get Out More. I said: “I need to start actually going to all the cool places in the UK that I love — or am curious about — instead of just daydreaming about going…”

Well, this one is by no means “done,” as I hope to have lots more adventures before 10th March 2016, but in order to get this goal properly kick-started, Lovely Boyfriend and I decided to do a truly epic tour of Scotland. Here’s where we “got out” to!

We started ^ here, at the Tay Forest Park, which is quite huge, and amazing. This part of it is at Faskally, and has lots of sedate walks or demanding hikes, depending on what you fancy. LB and did a bit of both… including some straying from the path and ending up crashing through trees, which was quite fun. We also met ducklings!

On the way from Faskally to Inverness, our next stop, we took a break at the Highland Wildlife Park. I’ll be honest, I was not looking forward to this place — I hate zoos and find them really, really depressing. But LB convinced me that this was different. I started out hating it, but after a while I realised that the vast majority of the critters actually had a pretty charmed life… even the polar bears, who I didn’t photograph but who we saw playing and play-fighting and eating tons of steak, which I am guessing they wouldn’t do if they hated living there. The worst thing about it was the terrible array of human behaviour we saw. That sign? Totally ignored by most. LB had to drag me away from the wolves as I was about to throw someone’s child to them!

I didn’t take many photos of Inverness, but I really liked it. I spent rather a lot of time in the many excellent charity shops there! It’s a weird place — they have poems in their pavements and tractors in their carparks, and it’s a funny mix of cosmopolitan (loads of tourists) and parochial. Inverness also has a massive second hand bookstore inside a converted church, but that was so good that it’s getting its own post… watch this space!

From Inverness, we drove for what seemed like ages to get to our little cabin in Caithness — seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but between Wick and Castletown if you want some idea. I loved Caithness very much — amazing bleak landscapes, huge skies and barely any tourists at all. Our little cabin was basic but cozy and had everything… including a little secluded ‘garden’ at the back where I got my first taste for outdoor yoga. The third photo there is the view from the cabin, and we saw three amazing sunsets while we were there… which LB greatly enjoyed, as you can see!

Caithness is all about the cool geological stuff. This is Duncansby, which is a famous site for nesting birds. Although you can’t see in the photos, that scar is an inlet that was packed with terns, shags, puffins and several types of gull, all feeding their chicks and making a truly amazing noise! The pointy witch-hat-like things are the Stacks of Duncansby, which are apparently super famous, and very spectacular IRL.

Caithness is also all about amazingly clean sandy beaches — and this one, which runs between Castletown and Dunnet, was really near to our cabin. We had it pretty much to ourselves and I got some very successful beach-combing done, finding huge shells, a whole sea urchin shell, and an amazingly delicate gull’s skull… morbid but cool!

On one of our Caithness days, we hiked along and around Dunnet Head, which is the northernmost point on the UK mainland. It was bleak, but incredible — as well as cool views there are also lots of creepy ruins there, and a Stevenson lighthouse (I met a few of the Stevenson lighthouses on this trip… and photographed not a one. Oops).

Just outside Wick is Castle Sinclair Girnigoe, this cool ruin that’s basically sticking out into the sea. Although (as you can see) it was a stunning day, there was no one else there with us so we were able to stomp around pretending to be seeing off the Vikings to our heart’s content. This was something I loved about Caithness: all the ‘tourist attractions’ were unmanned and free to enter, most of them down random dirt tracks with no visitor centre, no real car park to speak of… very cool.

Next stop, Orkney! The first Scottish island I have ever been to, though I have lived in Scotland 20 years next year. This is a weird selection of photos, but I was very, very preoccupied by Kirkwall’s incredible thrift shops. What can I say? I love a bargain more than just about anything else, and you’d be hard pressed to find anything in any of the charity shops of Kirkwall that’s more than a pound. Not kidding: I bought a ton of jewellery because everything was 20p! But I did have to stop and photograph that labrador. I got to scratch his ears, too!

Back to the mainland, and next stop Smoo! (Real actual name.) The Smoo Cave is a cave the Vikings discovered, and it’s so big that they were able to hide, store and repair their longships inside. It was pretty incredible, and like the Caithness tourist attractions, surprisingly un-busy!

After hours and hours of driving on tiny single-track, passing-place roads (and lots of playing dodge-the-outsize-camper-van!), we arrived in the West, at Tongue and then Gairloch. That third photo was the real-life, honest-to-god view from our Gairloch hostel window. This felt like proper shortbread-tin Scotland… and it had the tourists to match. Very quaint and cool, but personally, I preferred Caithness!

…and last but not least, a very local East Lothian spot. We got a scorching sunny day at one end of our trip so we decided to get on the train and go to North Berwick for paddling, yet more thrift stores (not Kirkwall standard, but still pretty good!) and the compulsory seaside poke-y-chips. Thanks, Summer 2014! You were awesome.

Where should I go next…?

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

^ That would be me, reading at the Edinburgh International Book Festival! (Blurrily.)

I’m only a quarter of the way into my 30 before 30 “to-do list,” and it’s been a BIG six months for poetry happenings!

First off, there was this:

…and this would be me reading Fire Comes, complete with strange CLAW HAND and terrible slouch (#6ftwomanproblems) at the award ceremony.

In the judges’ report, Stewart Conn said:

Claire Askew’s voice is arrestingly and distinctively her own, imbued with a sense of caring and inducing, in her more intimate moments, a scarcely bearable poignancy. These poems are flexibly yet firmly structured, their rhythms unforced, words and imagery constantly seeming fresh-minted. And throughout, her work is invitingly accessible.

And Jen Hadfield said:

Askew’s is a humane consciousness, with a genius for communicating how people tick. There’s never any doubt with Askew about why her poems exist: they exist because they insist upon it. She writes with an agenda compellingly, harnessing flashes of imagist brilliance.

But all of ^ that stuff was basically eclipsed by THIS news…!

I sent my manuscript out shortly after my birthday in March, and Bloodaxe was the first place I sent it. Bloodaxe has always been the publisher I wanted for my MS — in a wildest dreams sort of way — ever since I started to dare believe that my poetry might be good enough to one day be a book. Although of course I read poets from all manner of presses and publishers worldwide, a large majority of my all-time favourites — and of those whose work has influenced my own — are published by Bloodaxe. Their list is by far the most diverse of the UK’s larger presses, and I feel that Bloodaxe take risks and always strive for quality when it comes to the poets they choose to work with and the books they produce. It’s totally amazing to think that, in early 2016 when This changes things comes out, I will be part of a stable of artists that includes Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon, Kerry Hardie, Karen Solie and dozens of other poets I have looked up to for years, if not decades. This news has literally made my year!

Other amazing writing-related news since March…

One poem featured in New Writing Scotland 32: Songs of Other Places. I was also invited to read at the launch at Blackwells bookshop in August.

I submitted my poem ‘Hometown’ to Scottish Book Trust’s “Scotland’s Stories of Home” public participation campaign, and it was chosen to be featured in the Sunday Mail (without my prior knowledge, I should add)!

My poem ‘Poltergeistrix’ was selected to appear in the all-female anthology Furies, coming soon from For Books’ Sake.

Poems of mine were selected to appear in the anthology Be The First To Like This: New Scottish Poetry, coming later this month from Vagabond Voices.

Poems of mine were selected to appear in the all-female anthology Raving Beauties, coming soon from Bloodaxe.

My poem ‘Jack’ was runner-up in the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition, and will be published in the next issue of Mslexia… issue 63! You can order it here.

My poem ‘Dukkha’ was shortlisted for the Dermot Healy Poetry Prize.

Not to be sniffed at! But, as my 30 before 30 challenge goes on, I am increasingly adopting the mantra of President Josiah Bartlet…

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Hungry…? You will be in a minute when you see these vegan eats!

Cashew and aduki bean pie at David Bann.

The Stereo flatbread at Stereo.

Special oolong at Tchai Ovna.

Mushroom and tarragon burger at The 78.

Chocolate hazelnut brownie at The 78.

Aubergine, courgette, mushroom, asparagus, tomato and pine nut pizza, made by me!

Maple, vanilla and roasted walnut vegan cupcakes, made by me!

Here’s to the next six months of scoffing…!

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

You remember that one of the things in my 30 before 30 post was learning to cook things? Because as awesome as having a great cook for a boyfriend really is (and it really, really is), sometimes, you know, he goes out… and I end up eating a veggie burger from the back of the freezer. I’m not saying women ought to be 1950s-style domestic goddesses or anything, but I really don’t think Carrie Bradshaw’s whole “I keep sweaters in my stove” [read: and only ever eat take-out] thing is very adult. I need to be able to fend for myself, dammit!

So, I asked my aforementioned unpaid personal chef Lovely Boyfriend to teach me one of his classics: Thai tofu peanut satay and noodles. Turns out, it’s relatively straightforward… and extremely delicious! Here’s a rough idea of how to do it:

So, Lovely Boyfriend’s holy trinity of flavours is garlic, ginger and chilli — which is what this is, with some lemongrass and lime zest to make it extra Thai-ish. In the mug is some tamarind, softening in water. Apparently this is optional.

Next step: soften all those things, finely chopped or grated, in a small saucepan. (When it comes to amounts, it’s all down to your taste. This is 5 small garlic cloves, one stick of lemongrass, about a thumb-sized blob of ginger, one small chilli and the zest of one lime.) Once the tamarind has broken up in the water, seive the fluid into the saucepan too, and ditch the pulp.

Now for the veg! We did red bell pepper, carrot, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms and white onion — we also added deep-fried tofu (which is amazing and can be bought from Asian supermarkets) and cashews for protein, ’cause we’re vegan. You could put in chicken or some other dead creature if you’re that way inclined. But I do encourage you to try the tofu!

(While the veg chopping is going on, your garlic, ginger etc will have softened and the fluid from the tamarind will have reduced. Once that happens, add one can of tinned coconut milk to your wee saucepan, along with as much smooth peanut butter as you fancy — we put in about four tablespoons full. Stir til the peanut butter softens and mixes in, then leave to simmer.)

Here’s Lovely Boyfriend showing me how to wok out. Chuck all the veggies etc into your pre-heated and greased wok. You’ll see there’s also some water boiling, ready for the noodles to start cooking! With Thai noodles, you only need to put them on as things start to come together, ’cause they cook pretty fast.

Last part: final flavours! As your veggies start to look done, splash some sesame oil (not too much!) and soy sauce into the mix, and tear a bit of coriander into your now-smooth and simmering sauce! You can also add some extra lime to the sauce if you like.

Wok action shot! Once our noodles were cooked, we added them into the wok with the veggies and chucked the sauce over everything, and wok-ed it all for a short while to mix everything into the sauce. If you want, you can just add the sauce to the veggies alone and serve over virgin noodles.

Serve in a noodle-bowl with a wedge of lime for squeezing! Are my noodle-bowls not lovely? They were handmade by Caractacus Pots of Etsyville. All her stuff is handmade, OOAK, reasonably priced and lovely! I’m keeping an eye on her yarn bowl section for my next purchase!

Needless to say, the satay was freaking delicious, and provided 6 of our 7-a-day portions of veg. (You can substitute the coconut milk for water or some other kind of unsweetened plant milk to cut down on the fat content, too, health lovers.) Next challenge: to make it without Lovely Boyfriend’s help!

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Point 6 in my 30 by 30 post was “get out more,” and I thought I’d start right away. So I went on a writing holiday, to the countryside that’s inspired some of the real greats. Here’s some stuff I got inspired by:

What are YOU loving this week?

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Hello everyone. Sorry for the post drought lately. I’ve been busy doing a lot of exciting things… including turning 28!

Yes, that means I have been privileged to live on this planet for 28 full years… but it also means that in two years I’ll be 30. This isn’t a bad thing… in fact, if you ask me, it’s a handy deadline. I love a good to-do list, and frankly, 30 is a nice milestone to Achive Some Stuff by. Therefore, I am taking inspiration from a variety of bloggers, including Yes & Yes and Lion & Sloth, and creating a 30 before 30 list. 30 things I want to achieve in the next two years. And…go!

1. Graduate from my PhD.
OK, full disclosure: I am starting with the ones that are most likely to happen, and — hopefully I’m not jinxing anything by saying this — this one’s pretty much in the bag. I’ve passed the viva, I’ve submitted the corrections within my alloted three months, now all I need to do is print the fancy hardback version and order my graduation gown. Nevertheless, this has to go on the list, given that, you know, it’s probably going to be one of the bigger milestones in my life!

^ Getting my MSc in November 2009. More of this, please.

2. Find a publisher for my poetry manuscript.
Thanks to the aforementioned PhD, I now have a huge stack of finished, polished poems. You’ll remember that in early 2013 I was starting to turn that huge stack into something that looked more like a manuscript? Well, it took longer than I expected, but 14 months and two brilliant mentors later, said manuscript is now sitting somewhere in the office of the first publisher on my wish list. (I say “somewhere” — I’m really hoping it’s on someone’s desk, not, you know, in a bin.) I’m happy to acknowledge that the person who eventually publishes this manuscript might well be me, or it might be someone else. I want to find that out in the next two years.

3. Knit a cardigan.
I started working at Scottish Book Trust in October last year, and quickly realised that I was surrounded not only by fellow book geeks and delicious cake, but by a rather impressive bunch of knitters! After I made wistful noises about how I’d always wanted to be a knitter, Lovely Boyfriend took the initiative and bought be a starter kit of yarn and needles for Christmas. Since then, I have become well and truly addicted, and have exhausted all my easy-peasy square (blanket), rectangular (hoop scarf) and triangular (cosy shawl) options. It’s time for a proper project, and since “I could knit my own cardigans!” was one of my main reasons for starting to knit, I need to put my money where my mouth is.

4. Do more community work.
Making it Home, which I’ve written loads about here already, was my first proper introduction to community work — that is, putting my writing and teaching skills to good use as part of a community outreach arts project. Getting involved in MiH was one of the best things I have ever, ever done — and since then, I’ve dipped my toe into a few other, smaller community arts projects and become properly addicted to this kind of work. In the next two years, I hope to find other cool grassroots and outreach activities to get involved in. Gone are my days of sitting hunched over my laptop in my flat! I want my writing to be part of something bigger.

^ Some of the wonderful women of Making it Home, at our brilliant farewell party. More of this, too.

5. Finish doing up my house.
Remember this? Well, early ten months on, our little house is looking really quite different. We have: removed every single scrap of flecked wallpaper from every single room and re-decorated most; re-wired everything; sanded nearly every floor using a terrifying belt-sander; had a brand new kitchen fitted; tiled that brand new kitchen; had a wood-burning stove fitted and used it all winter (OMG) and collected enough furniture from Freecycle and friends to furnish the entire house for free (all except our dining table, which is IKEA’s finest. But still!). However, we still need to: tile the kitchen floor; get new front and back doors fitted (gah, draughts!); carpet the staircase; sort out some plumbing in the loft; re-do the ancient and rather grim bathroom, and most importantly, find somewhere for all our books to live! Ten months since we moved in and there are still boxes of them in the bottom of the wardrobe. This must be fixed!

6. Get out more…
I don’t have a car, and some months I also don’t have much cash. These things — added to my general prediliction for being as warm as possible and as close to tea-making facilities as possible at all times where possible — often result in me scuffing around all the same old places I always go. Problem is, I know full well that when I get out more, I write more, and I write better and more interesting stuff. Therefore, it’s time for me to stop saying “I need to come to Glasgow more, it’s only an hour away!” and actually do it. I need to start actually going to all the cool places in the UK that I love — or am curious about — instead of just daydreaming about going [back] to them “some day.” Over the next couple of years, I want to get better at snapping up Advance train tickets and going places.

7. …and travel more.
For me, visiting places in the UK isn’t really “travelling.” I’ve been to a lot of England, Wales and Scotland before, so I know what to expect. Most people speak the same language as me. I can get everywhere within a day.
“Travelling” means outside the UK… and I want to do more of that, too. My last trip abroad was Munich last October, and I also did Barcelona and Oslo in 2013. I’ll happily go back to any of those places, but I’d also happily explore pastures new, too. At present I have no firm plans, but I look forward to seeing where I end up over the next two years!

^ Paddling in the Pacific off Vancouver Island in 2007. And yes, more of this.

8. Hit 1,000 sales on Edinburgh Vintage.
Since last September, when I turned Edinburgh Vintage into a jewellery shop and moved away from the clothing, my sales have sky-rocketed (my orders went from 4 in September 2013 to 36 in November 2013!). EV is now a nice little pocket-money-earner and I really love hunting for new trinkets to list. Over the past six months or so I have developed a brilliant relationship with an amazing supplier, S, who helps me source cool stuff from all over the UK. I recently broke 500 sales, so 1,000 is the next obvious milestone — wish me luck!

9. Enter more poetry contests and Submit More Poems To Things Generally.
I am so bad at this. Last year, I let every single deadline whiz past me — the Eric Gregory, the Mslexia, loads and loads of smaller ones — all except the Bridport Prize, which is rather random. I am rather better at submitting to magazines and journals, but I could still try harder! Over the next two years, I need to pull my socks up and pay attention to deadlines. I may not get anywhere, but at least I will have tried!

10. Eat something I grew myself.
See No. 5 up there? All that house stuff? That’s before you even get to the garden, which currently consists of two scrubby bits of grass on either side of the house, and some paving slabs. By the time my 30th birthday rolls around, I want to have turned these scrappy patches into [the start of] an edible garden, and I want to have eaten at least one thing that’s grown there. It might be a sprinkling of thyme to put on my takeaway pizza, or it might be a whole salad. Anything, as long as it’s tasty!

11. Learn more about, and do more, foraging.
Last autumn I took advantage of a) moving to suburbia and b) acquiring this book, and grabbed myself a pretty impressive haul of autumn berries — including wild raspberries, elderberries and of course, brambles. But berries are easy to spot, easy to harvest, and easy to cook with. I want more of a challenge! I’d like to find out more about edible wild plants, find some, and eat them!

^ Tasty.

12. Adopt a dog.
Once that house stuff is done, Lovely Boyfriend and I are going to adopt a pup. I’m already so excited about this that I can barely contain myself! Look out for lots of excited posts and tweets about visiting cute staffies, greyhounds and Border terriers (my top three!) at rescue centres!

13 Build a book nook.
This should maybe come under the general banner of finishing my house-flip, except my desire for a book nook is something that way pre-dates any notion of owning my own house. There are loads of amazing book nook ideas out there, but this is the one that really got me thinking about the totally pointless cupboard that my house just happens to have… watch this space!

14. Commit to the next Next Big Thing, writing-wise.
OK, so the PhD’s in the bag (terrible unexpected things permitting), and the poetry MS is off visiting publishers. I have no massive project to work on WHAT IS MY LIFE?! Seriously, you’re looking at the girl who did her MA, MSc and PhD back-to-back while working full time and writing as much as spare time (ha!) allowed. Being busy is how I roll, and I especially like having something big and scary to chip away at. I don’t know yet what that will be. It might be a second poetry collection, or I’m even — whisper it — having ideas about a novel. Whatever emerges, I want to put the next two years towards making a good start.

15. Create a space I love writing in.
At my last rented flat before the house-flip began, I had a spare room that I sort of turned into a writing room. I was shocked to find that creating this space for writing was really effective in changing my thinking about writing. At this new house, the spare room is currently a storage facility for all the things we can’t yet unpack because we still need to do building work and DIY. However, I have my eye on it as a potential zen-like space for writing. It’ll be a communal space — Lovely Boyfriend is halfway through a novel, you guys (!!) — but I’m keen to also make it light and bright and productive and full of exciting books. Yipee!

16. Develop a proper regular writing routine…
…a thing I am putting off because I don’t have No. 15 yet (which, I know, is basically BS). I just finished a life-changing (not hyperbole) year of mentoring with the brilliant Sarah Ream, and one of the things she forced me to do was write regularly, to deadlines, and send her what I’d done. She says this is something I must keep up… especially now I’ve also finished my PhD and have total free reign and no deadlines at all (OMG first time in nine years!). So by the time I hit the big 3-0, I want to have sorted out Writing Time from Work Time and Housework Time and Dicking Around On The Internet Time. Eek.

17. Go on holiday with my sister.
My sister Helen (more commonly known as “Mole”) and I used to go off on adventures all the time when we were teenagers. Then we both went off to Uni and ended up living in different cities, and although we still see each other a lot and get on famously, our Megabus-ing, Youth Hostel-ing, campfire-building, countryside-stomping opportunities have diminished somewhat. However! I am determined to do something about this! We’re in the process of plotting a mega-exciting trip even as I type, so… hooray!

^ This was taken on Granton beach. Clearly we need to have better adventures.

18. Read for fun!
When I started my PhD, everyone was like, “OMG, you’ll have so much time to read books! You’ll be living in the library! I am so jealous!” However, the reality of writing a thesis — even a thesis on a subject you really like — is that quite quickly, reading becomes work. I mean, I absolutely love this textbook and it was my bible throughout the process, but re-reading the same essay for the sixth time trying to find that perfect quote that you keep forgetting to highlight is not exactly “reading for fun.” Over the next two years, I want to do as much fun reading as I can… and report back. Recommendations of great fiction, non-fiction and (of course) poetry are welcome!

19. Build a blog for Edinburgh Vintage…
Ugh, OK. This one seems like a huge chore, but I have decided to put it on this list in order to make myself do it. I mean, the business is ticking along quite nicely, and I have both a Twitter and a Facebook page for EV, but I know from observing other vintage traders who sell almost solely online that having a blog makes a big difference. I know I’d enjoy it once I got it up and running… I’m just very busy, and it always drops to the bottom of the to-do pile. Time to get it done!

20. …and get better at doing my books.
This is another one I’m putting here to make myself do it. I’m terrible for selling an item, and then going to pack it up for dispatch and having no idea where it is. I’m also terrible for not filling in my tax return until two days before the deadline, and having to do all my year’s books in one sitting. These things are not fun, why do I do them?! It’s not exactly a sexy, exciting goal… but it’s a good one, and I am pretty sure my business will benefit!

^ I sell shiny things.

21. Discover new vegan eats.
As you can see, going to vegan restaurants and raving about the amazing food is one of my hobbies. And as you can see, I’ve been to a fair few cities in order to do so. I guess this item shouldn’t really be on my “goals” list, as it’s something I am sure to continue to do, likely forever. But let’s see how many exciting new eateries I can discover in the next two years!

22. Throw a kick-ass housewarming party.
I know. We’ve been in our “new” house for ten months. However, it’s been a building site for most of that time, and also… our next door neighbours are a lovely sweet old couple who totally wouldn’t want to put up with my friends and I quaffing wine and playing records into the wee hours. Therefore, the housewarming, when it comes, is going to have to be strategically planned (my sweet neighbours go on a big overseas holiday once a year). And if our partying opportunities are few and far between, we’d better make it a really, really good one… right?

23. Celebrate big time when Lovely Boyfriend finishes his novel.
OK, this is totally not my goal to be getting. But it matters to me so much that LB, currently 40,000 words in, finishes his novel… not least because I desperately want to know what happens! I don’t mean to suggest that I’m going to bully him into it, or anything. But something I’ve learned from watching him write what he’s written so far is: it’s hard. It’s really hard. Lots of times you don’t want to go near it, and then other times you’re really anxious to start but you get to the keyboard and there’s just nothing there. Being the partner of another writer means respecting their process, but it does also mean cajoling (/nagging), praising (/offering crit) and generally providing whatever support they need to get the words out of their brain and onto the page/screen/whatever. It also means holding a freaking parade for them when they’re done. I can’t wait for that bit!

24. Get tattooed.
This is pretty much always at the top of my mental to-do list. I now have seven tattoos and about five million potential designs worked out “to maybe get next.” I wanted to put “get tattooed into double figures” — i.e. be the proud wearer of at least ten bits of ink by the time I turn 30. But that’s too dependent on factors I can’t always control (like, you know, having cash handy), so I’ll keep it modest. Oh! I’m also interested to hear about cool new tattooists. My current favourite, Gentleman Jim, has moved to Sheffield, so… who’s brilliant and in Edinburgh/Glasgow? Tell me, tell me!

^ This was my last tattoo and it was OVER A YEAR AGO. That’s way, way too long.

25. Bring home my first big project at work.
I’m currently taking the lead on a very exciting, very complex project at work — and I am amazingly grateful to my utterly wonderful boss, Koren, for trusting me with it (also helping me with it when I need help!). It’s all still a work in progress and I’m still not sure what the end product will look like, but I know I have a brilliant creative team gathered round me, and I am super excited to see what we can cook up together. I wish I could say more right now, but you’ll have to read on for the next few months to see if I can pull it off! Watch this space!

26. Get into lotus.
OK… I am still a baby yogi (in fact, calling myself a ‘yogi’ at all seems completely ridiculous… but so do all the alternatives. A baby yoga-er?!). I’m still trying to work out which poses/routines set off a problem with my neck that only doing yoga taught me that I have. Heck, I’m still trying to make myself do yoga regularly instead of being lazy. However, even at my beginner level, I’m frustrated that I can’t get into lotus. I know this is vanity and vanity is kind of the opposite of yoga, but it’d feel like a real mark of yogaish achievement if I could get flexible enough to do it! I can get into half lotus, so I feel like it’s do-able.

27. Learn to cook more things.
I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I like to bake. However, since I moved in with Lovely Boyfriend three years ago, I’ve got really lazy about cooking… because he’s basically my personal chef. However, that means that whenever he’s not around, I end up eating boring pasta. It also means that I’m totally intimidated when it comes to LB’s birthday, or our anniversary, and I feel like I ought to cook him something. I just can’t keep up with his mad skillz! So in the next couple of years, I’d like to learn how to cook a few easy but reasonably impressive dishes that I’d feel OK to feed to other people!

28. Have an amazing 89th birthday!
My birthday is the day before my dad’s, and most years we have some kind of joint celebration. Next year is his big 6-0, so I’ll need to plan something extra, extra special. Obviously I can’t mention much here, but let’s just say… plans are in the works!

29. Set up a pension.
OK, boring life admin this may be, but it’s pretty important. I can’t really claim to be a proper adult if I turn 30 and still don’t have a pension, if you ask me. The whole idea is Greek to me at the moment, but I’ve given myself two years to translate it all and get it done. Again… advice would be appreciated!

30. Have a great two years.
Look out for my “in 2016, I…” annual year-end round up. I hope it’s going to be major.