06.28 FLAT HUNT

Three summers ago, when I was looking to move to the UK to study, Maddy replied to an email in which I had inquired about a room in a shared property in Nottingham. She was candid in her reply and mentioned that she preferred flat shoes to heels and a cocktail at a jazz bar to a rockin' night out. As it happens, she does on occasion where heels and can party like a rock star, but my guess (with Casey's corroboration) at the time was correct: that we'd get on like a house on fire (NB: that's not a reference to the time I forgot the boiling egg on the stove and nearly burnt down our pad on Premier Road).

Three years on, we're living together and looking to find a flat for the two of us, as our current threesome is sadly breaking up. What we have learnt after a few days of flat hunting is that the market is a mess for people like us, looking to rent. Changes to the Capital Gains Tax instilled by the new Conservative-LibDem coalition has prompted owners to sell and a proportion of the property that would otherwise be available for rent is now on for purchase. Lots of people flat hunting and not enough flats to let means prices are jacked and turnaround is swift - in one case from my experience, gone within one hour.

And this is why today we were shuttled around town by various agents to flats, apartments, estates and even developments like this one - the foundation barely laid. Here's hoping we find something, and find something we love. A place where two flat-shoed, cocktail sipping, kitchen-bound busybodies plus one hamster can call home for a while.

06.24 BACKYARD

Nearly forgot a photo today. Had a quiet one in, pensive. The 24th and, in hindsight, that's probably why. Spoke with my parents on the phone, who were bimbling in the garden as usual. Inspired me to take in the vista that is my backyard too, albeit not as green and invigorating as my parents. Instead, our terrace overlooks a schoolyard, which, thankfully, has quieted for the summer. I'm rarely home in the week, and when I have been the incessant hollaring is a contraceptive in its own right. It's pleasant at times, but mostly just annoying. Tonight, peace. But somehow the quiet disturbs me. Just one of those days.

06.16 MAXIMALIST

I'd like to say I'm a minimalist. I can be, when I have to be. Like when I'm packing for air travel and am limited to 25 kg of shoes, shirts and toiletries, and shoes. Although I always tip the scale with that extra pair of knickers.

Given the luxury of travel by car, I let go of any inhibitions, dumping my contents into a weekender, a duffle bag a pack and two purses. Embarrassing, particularly as this is an outdoorsy adventurous expedition. I should be able to roll and squeeze everything I need into a 15 litre lightweight pack, right?

But the knickers. They just take up so much space.

06.11 MAKE DUE

It's nearly midnight. Clock strikes twelve and this project turns into a pumpkin. For lack of a more promising photo opportunity, and for lack of time, I make due with this photo of Dan, in the kitchen, piecing together brie and toast with tomatoes for a late-night snack after a few drinks a the pub in Old Town. Making due with whatever bits and pieces we could scrounge from my pantry.

It'll do.

06.09 ONE WEEK

Post! (Mail!) It's always so exciting to receive! I was expecting a package from my sis, and was nevertheless surprised to find its contents, a film called One Week by director Michael McGowan (of Saint Ralph fame) and starring Joshua Jackson.

I introduced Clair to Saint Ralph (for once, a film I had seen that she hadn't!). She loved it and went on to watch the director's more recent work, promising it is 10x improved. I'm sure I'll love it, but admit I have a soft spot for the story of a boy who wants to win the Boston Marathon, filmed in my university town of Hamilton. Not to mention One Week is a rather dark plot, surely a thoughtful tearjerker, about a man with just that much time to live.

Am itching to see this, and go back and revisit Saint Ralph to appreciate the directors style and development. All I need is a rainy day...(surprisingly few and far between these days in London)

06.07 PINE CONE

It's not an acorn. Nope. It's a pine cone. I should know these things. A senior moment - or perhaps a sign I've been living in the city too long.

Maddy is diligent, careful, outlining the scales of the cone, rubbing in the shadows and blending in the shape. It's a handmade gift card, which I hope the recipient appreciates. Her medium is charcoal, a messy option, and her fingers are blackened by it.

I'm not sure why she chose the pine cone as her subject for the drawing. I don't know much about cones, so googled. Surprise - the cone is an organ and contains the reproductive structures of the pine - releasing seeds! (I'll be an expert on this in just a few more google searches). The female cone is the most distinguishable, and is often used to recognize species of trees. The one on our dining table must be a chick.

It's also just an attractive subject for a drawing I suppose.

06.06 CUPCAKES

Day off (But for a half our interview prep for a magazine article I'm working on). With my 2010 New Year's resolution in mind (yes, I've lasted longer than 2 weeks, becoming an anomoly rather than a statistic...), I set out to grab a coffee and the Sunday paper. I wandered down Lavendar Hill until I hit a convenience shop (what do they call them here again...mental block. It'll come...*) that sold the paper (you'd think they'd all stock Sunday's...?). Reading material in hand (plus supplement celebrating 50 years of the pill. Power to women. Woo!), I set out for one of two new cafes in the neighbourhood, meandering past, then dipping into another new shop - a bakery and cakery - where I picked up a few cupcakes for the flatmates. Never been a fan, but in this case, I do wish I had bought three.

*(Aha! The word is Off-licence, as in, a premisis that sells alochol but where alcohol cannot be drunk on the vendor's premisis, unlike an on-licence, for example, a pub). Leaves me wondering what you call a 'convenience store' that doesn't sell alcohol at all...a non-license? I dunno.

06.01 TURKEY PIE

It's a cold and rainy night so I thought I'd rustle up some comfort food. Homemade potato and fennel cream soup and my first-ever attempt at a meat pie - turkey and veg in a made-from-scratch pastry (cold hands are, well, handy on occasion).

Proved a success, and won me points with the boyfriend. The easiest way to a man's heart...

05.26 WELCOME DRINKS

The Bank Holiday weekend kicks off early, very early, with Wednesday night drinks and a catch-up with the girls. Lauren moved to the city recently, from Bristol, where she had taken a job after our journo course.

Now resident in Clapham, we met at a local pub for a few glasses of wine and some belated gossip, and to welcome Lauren to the big smoke.

05.24 PORTRAIT PAINTER

Nope, it isn't Tuesday. After all, I'm not the only artist in the house. Salma has filled the living room mantle with her signature swirly acrylics, and is now 'dabbling' (can you call someone this talented a 'dabbler'?) in portraits, with a work based on a photo of our housemate, Maddy.

I say 'dabbling' because the work she'd displayed so far has been abstract, or (to say the least) imaginative - a flying-spaghetti-moster-like deity hangs over a My Little Pony beneath a ranbow that leads to a squawking chicken with feathers a-flapping, in one of her classic works.

It is interesting to see her style converted to realism. And she's planning to sell her recent works, which might have a larger market if she sticks to more typical (less disturbing) decorative subjects. In any case, a natural with the brush, she's destined to cash in on her talent....

05.21 HOME GIRL

On from yesterdays blog to my own very domesticated housemates. Salma, in particular, has a knack for making a house a home. From bread baking, to colouring the walls with portraits and paintings, stitching a cloth spice rack, to a flourishing garden of herbs and veg - she towers above Nigella on the pyramid of home-bound deities.

This evening, she was whipping up a risotto for a friend and gave me some instruction. Take home point: stir, stir, stir until your wrist feels like it's gonna fall off.

I watched in amusement as she plucked peas from a stalk on the terrace, harvesting a good handful of home-grown greens for the recipe. Each potted plant nurtured to perfection, while my shabby dried-out sunflower in a can - a birthday gift from Kat that was supposed to be fool-proof - limps in pathetic contrast in a shady corner.

I think I got the risotto down, but I'll leave the gardening to the green-thumbed domestic goddesses.

05.17 WRITING ON THE WALL

Passing this worn and weathered building on my way back from the grocery shop, I took a moment to stop and read the writing on the plastered brick exterior. Writing stencilled upon writing.

Horses and carraiges jobbed for any period. Cars for Hire. Travellers....Stations....Etc...Supplied.

Give it some thought, and still can't make much sense of it besides it was once a shop, and that it has a history of dealing in transport ventures. Sack of potatoes, eggs and milk are getting weighty, so I shrug my shoulders and continue along.

05.12 MAPLE MASTERPIECE

Voila! A caramelised banana maple and pecan upsidedown cake, topped with warm creme anglaise. Maddy is taking a course at Leiths, and arrives home weekly with samples of her latest culinary creation. We've been on a steady stream of maple syrup this week, slowly eating through the box of imported Christie maple creme biscuits I've left on the dining table. But there is always room for a smidgen (a tapped-tree's -worth) more, and Maddy had no problems this evening finding gluttonous guinea pigs to taste test her work. Masterpiece.

05.10 FUNNY FACES

The best thing about this photo is that Dan is in it.

The second best thing about this photo is how excited Dan is to be in it (although I think it is dinner, rather than photo-blog fame that he's really excited about).

The next best thing about this photo is that I caught the funny face in the picture on our wall in the background - a look that somewhat mirrors (but with less excitement and a hint of confusion and surprise) the funny face in the foreground.

05.09 NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Home, away from home, away from home.

Just arriving, suitcase in tow. Relief? Or disbelief that only hours ago I was on the other side of the Atlantic. (I'm generally stupified when I land safely on the tarmac, often anticipating the worst when travelling by air).

Time to resettle. I unpack, tidy up and even fit in a short run to shake out the jet legs. Somehow I still feel unsettled, and away from home. But neither do I really feel in my element in Canada any longer. I've never really been attached to location - but rather to people. Although I certainly miss runs along the escarpment, picnics by the Pelee shores, dining in Toronto and driving the Ontario highways strips. I would likewise long for a Friday falafel from the Borough Market, lounging on the common in the summer, Wednesday workouts in Battersea Park, mild summers, mild winters and the weekday bustle across London Bridge.

So here I am now, and my travels have left me forever clicking my ruby heels, murmuring the mantra, "There's no place like home", and without a place in mind.

04.29 END OF THE CURSE

Maddy has an unfortunate streak with hamsters.

When she was a kid, she treated her pet to a luxurious bubble bath, only to find that hamsters don't stay afloat very easily. The second was hugged a little to hard - think of the nurturing but overbearing tendency of Lenny in Of Mice and Men. The third victim was fed a carrot; harmless enough. But Maddy supposed he might also require a knife to chop his dinner up. He slashed himself on it instead.

When we acquired John McPhee, Maddy was reluctant, but agreed to keep him, as long as he wasn't her responsibility. Salma and I roared 'Aye' to that (with one eye shut and in the affirmative, husky voice of a hamster-pirate comrade) on behalf of the McPheester. When he went missing, she spent two nights away, afraid she might step on him, sit on him or by some other fateful means, kill yet another. It comes as a surprise, then, that after a long 49-hour stretch of hiding, J-Mac mad his first appearance upon her return, in a midnight scramble across her bedroom rug, from one corner of the room to his hiding place under the bed. Maddy had only been home an hour or so, and might have mistaken him for a 'ghost of hamsters past' if it weren't for his distinguising missing eyeball.

She woke me in a start, fearful of catching him herself and, well, pulling a Lenny again - so I hustled to her room where we caught him mid-flight across the rug and replaced him safely in his cage. I might have felt guilty, reincarcerating McPhee, if it weren't for the ravenous state we found him in - he immediately stuffed his cheeks like a melon, washed it down with the complete bowlful of water, and then nestled himself in his favourite corner, curled into a foetal position and fell fast asleep.

We all slept well last night. Especially Maddy, who has finally broken the haunting curse.

04.23 JAMIE OLIVER

This one's for Judy. A DIY pizza buffet at the new Jamie Oliver store in Clapham. Pizza-lovers heaven. Yet another good reason, besides bread and butter pudding, to come visit me in London...

04.20 STEP FOUR

It's looking more like a bird, no? The photo I've based this painting on rests just below the easle. I've yet to dabble a bit here and there and touch up highlights in the background. And the beak is blank for fear I would accidentally smudge the surrounding wet colours with my hand. But I'm nearly there. Another painting only a father could love...?

04.19 PUB QUIZ

Pub quiz at The Goat. With categories on Disney Films and Harry Potter you'd think they were catering to parents and kids.

Somehow Salma and Higgins nailed these ones.

Which European country has the letter M on its licence plate?

I got one answer correct, but sadly lost confidence and kept it in my head. The answer was not Gozo.

The first pub quiz I ever did was during my travels in Australia. Don't know how I got roped into that one. One of the answers was 'Blackberry' but I can't for the life of me remember the question. This is probably thanks to years of watching Alex Trebec host Jeopardy...

04.15 STEP THREE

I've filled in just a bit more of the background, and completed the rock that the Kookaburra is perched on. It's coming along with the aide of James Yorkston which I have discovered sets a suitable mood for splashing paint.