As you will now be aware I am back in the dull grey wetness of good old England, and so to cheer myself up somewhat I have taken to doing what I do best – eating and baking. Having collected all my stuff, jammed the car up with cardboard boxes full of dormant utensils and pillows, and drove my parents mad for a week, I have now landed back in Leeds in my lovely new house.

Between unpacking and eating takeaway upon takeaway I headed out on plenty a shopping tip, including a dash to Aldi where I got myself baking supplies (after having only borrowed my housemates’ during the whole of my second year of university), a new plant, and way too much other stuff to carry in one trip. Stubborn and determined not to pay for a taxi, however, I piled it all up and wound up stopping five times en route to my house… Yikes.

Whilst I have a couple of weeks of relatively free time, I decided to get back into cooking and try out some of the recipes I picked up whilst in Madrid, which have included tortilla española (a Spanish omelette made with egg and potato and, in my case, onion), gambas píl píl (prawns in garlic and chilli) and even an attempt of a salad in a tortilla bowl which was made using the tortilla pans you can see above.

I did, of course, have to put my new gear to good use and get back into my passion for baking – all in perfect time for the start of the most important event on the British calendar – The Great British Bake Off. Rhea invited me out to a picnic with some of her friends so I took the opportunity to destroy the freshly cleaned kitchen in order to make a lemon sponge cake in record time, and six lemons and two whole packs of butter later it was ready to be shared around…

In between all this food I have also been working on projects for Burnley Youth Theatre again, chatting with my housemates and having catch-ups with Danni, and generally settling in with posters and lights galore – photos of those to come soon. I have also recently celebrated both my sister and my dad’s birthdays, both incurring trips back home for some lovely food (here we go with the food again) and laughs with the family.

For now though I am back in Leeds, finishing off the remains of the lemon cake and drinking what may as well be liquid sugar, all in preparation for a 3am website update. Hopefully nobody will see any of that happening – it will be very ugly and I will be wondering why you’re awake and browsing my site at such an hour…

We start this post with the kind of sad news that my time working with Erretres in Madrid has come to an end, and that in order to escape the unforgiving heat of the burning Spanish sun, it’s also time for me to go running through the airport as fast as I can with my passport and boarding card flailing as I go – not that that actually happened, of course…

So it’s true that my escapades in the airport meant that the journey home wasn’t quite as smooth as I had planned, but before that there was the task of giving the team at the studio a Great British Send Off. As the flat I had been living in had no oven, and the studio no cooking facilities save for a microwave, I had to cunningly procure a menu of easily prepared and stored British classics that hopefully would be new to the guys at Erretres. This ended up looking as follows:

1. Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese or tuna mayo
2. Tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches
3. Coronation chicken sandwiches
4. Jammie Dodgers and some Fox’s Biscuits
5. Cocktail sticks with cheese and pickled onions
6. Cheese and onion flavour Walkers crisps

Adorned with some little Union Jacks that I made and London Underground signs reading adios and hasta lluego (see you), the Coronation Chicken Sandwiches were a surprising favourite – and I was particularly proud as I had had to go running around the city looking for the ingredients to make it myself – you try finding mango chutney in the middle of Spain!

Saying goodbye to everyone wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, as I know that I’ll be back to visit the city very very soon, and I know that I’ll always be welcome to drop by and pay a visit to everyone as and when I do. The blow was also softened by a parting gift from Luis, a dashing little piece for me to wear whilst baking…

Once the crisps had all gone and my cheese and onion hedgehog was a pile of tin foil and cocktail sticks, it was finally time to head back to my flat one last time. Once there, I failed miserably at packing, leaving most of it to the morning, and when I left myself a mere one hour to get packed and ready and to the Metro station, it did indeed go as disastrously as one might imagine.

I did manage to get onto my flight, however, and then by midday just over a week ago I was back in the cold, wet arms of Manchester Airport. I was cheered up by my sister and dad greeting me with both the pork pies I had requested and a surprise huge personalised cookie that Ellie had picked up from the Trafford Centre. Loved it!

Since arriving home I’ve kept myself as busy as ever, heading back to Burnley Youth Theatre to start doing bits and bats to prepare them for my departure for university again, and to my new house over in Leeds where I had a lovely catch up with Beth and Rhea and managed to move some of my stuff in – and try some of the latest delicious Indian street food in Trinity Kitchen…

I also took an hour out just yesterday to head down to my local church for the village’s Crafts Fair which happens once a year, and hosts some of the best cakes and scones in the world. It was lovely to snoop around and have a relaxing cup of tea – what better way to begin my re-imerssion in British culture?