Tea and Sympatico

I've been trying to get into the Christmas spirit. Most of my shopping is covered. I tend to buy things throughout the year, partly to spread the cost and partly as a habit I got into from my days of working in retail when you end up working all hours in December and getting tired and stressed. I used to like to get it out of the way before consumer madness descended. I got my Christmas cards printed up this week. I did a little pencil sketch of some Christmas jumpers and used my local community printers Marc . I've also been getting a bit of shopping in. My mum took me to the new mega Tesco on Salford Precinct last week and I got very excited by the world food isle. Maybe all big Tescos have these, I wouldn't know, there are none near to where I live. There were vegan friendly Oreos, albeit mini ones (great for cupcakes though) and tins of pumpkin on offer 2 for £3. Tonight I got even more excited in Sainsburys. New Crisps for Christmas! Kettle Chips have broug

I've been somewhat MIA since Mofo finished. Things have been rather busy. I had a birthday and there were several celebrations around that and I had a wonderful birthday weekend away staying at the iconic art deco Midland Hotel in Morecambe. We had a fab time and the staff really looked after my vegan dietary needs providing soya milk and margarine and printing off our own vegan menu when we had an evening meal providing 3 choices for each course. We also managed to fit in a visit to the Whaletail Cafe in Lanchester on the way home so that's another tick off the the Top 10 Vegan Breakfasts list! Matt also released his third Quiet Loner album last week to great reviews. Check out this 10 out of 10 review on Americana UK. I'm so proud of him. It's a great album from the music right down to the handprinted letterpress sleeve created by artists Kev Craig and David Armes. Have a listen, there's a link to some tracks on the right hand side of the homepage o

I love taking part in the monthly UK vegan food swap. It's such fun choosing what to put in your parcel and so exciting when you receive one. If you want to take part sign up over at Too Happy Vegans by the 5th. I first heard about the swap over on the Vegan in Brighton blog and this month I got my parcel from the owner of that blog Jojo. Very excitingly Jojo had just returned from a holiday in the States and all the goodies in my parcel were from there.  Here's a better look at the contents. I've eaten most of the bars already. I'm saving the pumpkin to make the Vegan With A Vengeance Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins for Christmas Day morning something I've done a few times in the past but couldn't do last year as my stock of holiday purchased pumpkin had been emptied. Something else from the package came in handy for our Halloween Tea. First off I purchased some David Shrigley Brain Bread . 13 loaves of the bread are being sold from 2pm every Wedn