Birdy backpack

Yesterday while walking around Belsize Park, we spotted a man in front of us with a backpack. Which is not so unusual for Central London. What was unusual was that it was a bird backpack, with a full size parrot inside! Crazy. I love living in the city. I wish I had gotten a better stealth picture of it but this will have to do. How do you get the bird out with all of those safety pins?

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Muffin cupcakes (Muffcakes?)

This weekend has been dreamy because of the lovely weather. I went over to my friends house in North London for a day filled with gloriously crap chick flicks and baking. We procrastinated on the baking for a good hour, haphazardly flipping through her cook books while soaking in the sun on her roof terrace with a few glasses of Proessco. It's amazing how indulgent a little sun and bubbles feels.

Ultimately, we decided on a baked Camembert studded with garlic, covered in olive oil, rosemary and thyme and wrapped and baked in short crust pastry. The real star of the show was the blueberry muffins that we turned into cupcakes. There are no strict rules regarding the toppings of muffins, so why can't they have a little frosting? I don't have the recipe for theses muffins, as it was out of one of my friend's books. I'll see if I can get her to send it to me. It was really interesting, as it included regular flower, chickpea flower, and buttermilk (which I haven't used in muffins before).

Weren't they beautiful? Thanks Nigella. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for posting the recipe here. 

Cormeal Blueberry Muffins Recipe

• 1 cup (250 mL) flour
• ½ cup + 1 tbsp (140 mL) cornmeal
• 2 tsp (10 mL) baking powder
• ½ tsp (2 mL) baking soda
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) sugar
• pinch salt
• ½ cup (125 mL) vegetable oil
• ½ cup (125 mL) buttermilk
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup (175 mL) blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C) and line a muffin tin with papers.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and sugar and salt. In a measuring jug or bowl, pour the oil and buttermilk and whisk or fork in the egg.

Stir the oil mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients – remembering that lumpiness is a good thing when making muffins – and fold half the blueberries into your thick golden batter.

Divide this batter between each muffin case (they will be about two-thirds full) and drop the remaining blueberries on top; you should have about 3 for the top of each muffin.

Cook in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, till a cake tester comes out cleanish (obviously it will be stained if it hits a berry). Leave the muffins in the tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins, in their cases, to the wire rack to cool a little (not too much) before you serve or eat them.

Frosting:

100 g soft unsalted butter
100 g icing sugar
3 teaspoons (or to preference) blue food colouring

Whisk until combined.

Sarah Jessica Parker answers 73 questions

This video is nothing short of perfection, because it's SJP. Check out how dreamy her home is!

Springtime

It's so ridiculously lovely out, I've got the door open at the gallery despite the traffic noise to take advantage of the sun. I wish I could roam the city with my camera, but since I can't have these springtime shots from 2012 taken in suburban Leeds, UK.

Alexander Ebert

Have a photo of Alexander from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros to brighten up your Thursday evening.

Début

On Tuesday my girlfriend and I went to a dance school in central London and took our very first ballet class together, something that my husband has encouraging me to do for a few weeks now. Throughout the morning before I researched blogs of new adult dancers, trying to make myself feel a little bit less nervous. 

After rushing from work (the kind of rushing where I forgot my engagement ring at work after I took it off to do the washing up), I waited for the class to start outside the studio. I overheard some dancers, who wearing tights and proper leotards and looking very intimidating, talking about how they formerly dancer professionally, and I couldn't help but wonder if I was in the wrong place, even though it was the Adult Absolute Beginners class. 

Once all 40 odd of us were allowed in and scurried to choose our places at the barre, I knew it was going to be okay when the teacher asked who was trying ballet for the first time. My friend and I raised our hands, and even though he separated us so we were in between more experienced students he did it with a joke that put us at ease. 

I've historically had loads of issues with my feet (probably not helped by two bunion surgeries at age 21 and 24), and my toes cramp on their own a lot. So I really struggled with the barre exercises because of my toes cramping and wanting to stay curled up in a point when I was supposed to be extending and 'sweeping' the floor during tendus. 

It was immensely fun, and one of the most difficult things I've ever tried.That made me love it more - I have a history of getting extremely bored and dropping activities that come easily to me, especially as a child (hello tennis, gymnastics, and guitar). 

I loved the french words for everything - tendus, plies and demi-plies, ronde de jambes. I loved the feeling of accomplishing a releve on demi point without the barre and holding it for a few moments - a tiny victory. 

I can't wait to go back and am going to make a huge effort to go at least two out of the three times its offered per week.