Tea and Sympatico

There's been lots of baking going on in my house this week! After making 100 cakes for the LRM launch last Saturday I did a lot more baking for work. My lovely work colleagues donated money for baked goods and raised another $95 towards Hillary's Go Fund Me to get her rehoused and her cats back. If you've not donated yet and can spare a few quid to help a vegan blogger friend then please, please pop on over to the site and also please share it. She could do with one last boost to get to the target and the money will greatly help with getting her and the animals resettled. The Golden Vanilla Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World are always a winner and are a recipe that works really well to double up on to make a big batch. The Chocolate, Orange, Walnut brownies are the same ones that I made when I won the Bake-Off competition at work last year. They are the vegan brownie recipe I've found that tastes most like a non-vegan brownie with a perfectly...

I've been thinking a lot this week about community and what that means. In these times of political uncertainty when the media is bombarding us with bad news after bad news and the cost of living is shooting up it's easy just to want to become a hermit and not leave the house unless you have too! I have to admit, I've been feeling really affected but a couple of things have happened in the last week that have made me want to fight back against feeling like that. First of all we went to The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival . Matt did his new Battle for the Ballot show on the first night and we got to spend a weekend in the sun catching up with lovely friends listening to inspiring music and speeches including a visit from Jeremy Corbyn. We've also both been involved with an exhibition organised by The Loiterer's Resistance Movement   I love what the LRM manifesto says - 'We can't agree on what psychogeography means but we all like plants growing out of the ...

Wow, what a week!!! I've had no time to mourn the end of Vegan Mofo . As soon as we finished work on Thursday it was straight into action with We Shall Overcome weekend. Matt played at 7 different events over 4 days and it was an amazing experience seeing the whole idea come together with events all around the country happening at the same time and for the same reasons. My friends who happen to be vegans too put on fantastic events. Here's Lynnmarie who runs Manchester Vegan Society and her partner Martin the Mod who runs Mod's Veggie Vegan Cafe . They put on a brilliant day in Manchester City Centre at the Thirsty Scholar Pub with bands, poets and speakers and off course Lynnmarie's wonderful vegan cakes for sale. This was a picture just outside the Thirsty Scholar and too good an opportunity to miss. The woman with pink hair is our friend Morag Rose who runs psychogeographic group, the Loiterers Resistance Movement . Morag curated and led a fascinating walk ...