MrsDoyle

I use WhatsApp on my computer, in a web browser, but you do have to activate it from your phone via a q code.

Get yourself a couple of onions while you’re buying potatoes. Gently cook a sliced half onion in a bit of margarine until it’s nice and soft, then add your chopped up potato, a bit of salt and some herbs (see below), pour water in and cook gently until the potato is done. Soup!

Ideas for getting fresh herbs: trickiest one is visiting a garden centre that sells herbs and casually nipping off a sprig. Rosemary is very tasty and pungent, you don’t need much, thyme is also good. Is there a botanic garden or similar near you? Learn what various herbs look like and go scouting. If you see someone gardening ask if they have herbs, and would they mind letting you have a twig. Again, you don’t need a whole lot. But it makes a big difference to flavour, and is nicer than dried herbs.

I did a lot of shameless scrounging when I was young, including sifting through vegetables discarded by retailers but still ok to eat, but I realise not everyone is up for this kind of malarkey. So think about investing in a packet of basil seeds. Very tasty herb. All else you need is some dirt and an empty margarine tub. Easy to grow basil on your window ledge.

I kissed the blarney stone once, disgusting business. I lay down, half my body hanging out under the parapet, while a man held on to my legs. Reached up my head and put my lips on the stone. What was I thinking?!?

It’s an upper crust thing. A bit old-fashioned as well.

Orbital, by Samantha Harvey. It’s just won the Booker prize so I thought I’d check it out. It’s set on the space station, and is basically the astronauts on board thinking. I can’t believe how beautiful it is, how gripping.

For the first few minutes I thought this was someone explaining frostbite using rubber models/makeup on their fingers. Very, very interesting and informative, as well as slightly horrifying. I can’t imagine talking so calmly and positively about losing some of my fingers.

At my brother’s house for dinner, yum, chicken casserole. Six-y-o niece: “It’s not a chicken, it’s a rooster. It bit daddy, and daddy cut its head off.” Still delicious.

A friend going to work in Oslo was asked if she had sorted out clothing for winter. She said, “Well I have my winter coat,” indicating the one she was wearing . Her colleague-to-be fingered it and said, “No, that’s your autumn coat.” Her winter coat, it turned out, was a down-stuffed waterproof.

So many things! But mostly that I have a lot of wonderful friends. I was a pretty lonely child, awkward and uncool.

I’m in the UK and KFC has gone downhill here too - something I’m very grateful for! A few years ago I got a real craving for a crispy, juicy piece of chicken with the colonel’s secret spices. I ended up with a grim, wizened leg that tasted of stale oil and despair. Never again. My own cooking is sooo much better, and cheaper too. Win win!

How do you say 1901 then? One thousand nine hundred and one? Nineteen hundred and one? Or nineteen oh one? Have you ever heard of the Eighteen Hundred and Twelve Overture?

I’m in the “twenty oh one” etc camp, it’s concise and consistent.

Scotland too: “hen” to women, “pal” to everyone.

How else to explain this?

Horses self-replicate, which bicycles can’t do. Except maybe in the Netherlands, I think they do breed over there.

Don’t get my town’s Facebook group involved in this question. Most people: Eeewwww! Dog owners: I pick up after my dog, horse riders should also use poo bags! Gardeners: Where is it? I’ll bring my wheelbarrow.

TERFs are absolutely a tiny but vocal minority. Most people couldn’t give a toss.

Ah. Maybe work up a few phrases explaining your situation ahead of the trip?

Seeing it in a real theatre while stoned makes a huuuuuge difference. “It’s full of stars!!”

Be open, humble, friendly, listen more than you talk. Try and learn a bit about the country you’re in, not to have opinions about it, but to better understand the people you meet. Happy travels!

My favourite joke, being the only one I can remember. Still gets a laugh!