There’s a reason I’m always scrolling mindlessly though my phone.

Sure, some would say it’s an addiction I use to distract myself from the depressing realities of existence. They’d tell me that I need to put down my phone and start actually living life. That I should start walking barefoot on the grass and gazing at sunsets and carpe-ing the fuck out of those diems. They’d tell me to be mindful of the present and to take time to just be.

And that sounds like lovely advice. However, I’ve discovered that when I’m alone with my own thoughts, I’m made aware of just how much of a mess I really am. And that’s not great.

This realisation happened as I was having my hair washed by the hairdresser. I had to take my glasses off. I couldn’t move. And I was unable to read any of the delightfully out of date trashy magazines tempting me back at the hair cutting station. All I could do was think.

And I thought this would be a good thing. “Use this time to be present,” I thought. I told myself that I should take this opportunity to be mindful and that it’s here in these quiet moments when the big ideas come. Maybe I’d have a epiphany. Perhaps I’d suddenly decide what direction I want my life to go in because I finally took the time to slow down and just be still with my thoughts.

But the only realisation I had as a result of this was that I overthink. And I already knew this. Heck, even Joe Blow from downtown Clifton already knew this.

The whole time I was thinking about how I should be thinking deeply and let my mind wander, given I had all this time to to think. It was similar to when you’re trying to go to sleep, but can’t because you’re focusing on falling asleep –  like I wanted it too much. The whole time I was telling myself to enjoy the nothingness instead of actually enjoying the nothingness. It was ridiculous. I was stressing that I had to be relaxed.

Sure, maybe being alone with your thoughts is good for some people. But after collecting some of the thoughts I’ve had this weekend, I can’t say with confidence that this is the case for me. To demonstrate my point, I’ve collated a number of thought progressions, recalled as best as I can remember. Judge them for yourself.

Thoughts I’ve had this weekend 

While my scalp was being rubbed by a hairdresser:

1. Good gravy that feels like heaven.
2. I’m essentially paying someone for human contact, and I’m ok with that.
3. It’s not seedy or pathetic to pay someone to rub your head, that’s just responsible hair maintenance.
4. Next time I feel desperately lonely, I should just do this.
5. Holy potatoes, that might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

While chewing on a very tough crust of bread:

1. I think I just cut my lip.
2. Dang, the blood will mask the taste of the butter
3. Actually, I don’t mind the taste of blood.
4. It would actually pair with butter quite well.
5. I wonder if there’s a blood butter combo out there and if there’s any money to be made in that.

After dropping a perfume bottle from the top shelf above my bathroom sink:

1. Did that land on my big toe?
2. It felt like it landed on my big toe.
3. But I’m not crying.
4. Am I suddenly extremely tough?
5. No, that crack you heard first was the sound of the bottle hitting the tile, the bottle must have bounced on to your toe.
6. I hope this isn’t broken.
7. But then I wouldn’t mind if it were broken, because then I’d have an excuse to work from home in my pyjama pants.
8. No, that toe is flexing and you’re going to have to wear business casual attire (heavy on a caszh)
9. I shouldn’t be disappointed my body is fully functional and predominately healthy.
10. Buuuuut I kinda am.
11. I hope this bruises.
12. If I don’t get a sweet bruise, I’ll be furious.
13. I want to impress people with the discoloration caused by blood cells pooled under the surface of my skin.*

While reading The Barefoot Investor:

1. Right, so old mate expects me to find $2000 to put in an emergency crisis account.
2. My whole pay cheque goes to an emergency crisis situation – my damn steamin’ mess of a life.
3. Where the shit am I supposed to find $2000?!
4. Ah, he reckons I can sell my stuff on Gumtree.
5. Makes sense.
6. HAHAHAHAH I have nothing of value.
7. How much would someone pay for the ceramic log with bunnies on it that I keep my toothbrush in?
8. Would anyone want my sweat-stained Bridge to Brisbane shirt from 2013?
9. I have an old iPhone, but the camera is broken and the lens is smashed.
10. Everything I own is worthless junk.
11. My room is essentially Fagin’s boat hideout on Oliver and Company, except without all the dogs and happiness.
12. Should I sell my used undies?
13. Ah, he’s suggested I start driving Uber.
14. My car wouldn’t be safe enough to meet the Uber requirements.
15. Oh yeah, I don’t even have a car anymore because I sold it back to my parents because I couldn’t afford to register it in New South Wales.
16. I hate my life

* Yeah, I did have to do a cheeky bit of Google referencing for that one to make sure it was correct. I of course consulted a website directed to children, partly because of the simple-to-understand language, partly because of the bright colours.

Eftpos minimums make for traumatic shopping experiences.

I just went to my local corner store for a bottle of milk (I go with Dairy Farmers because no bastard has Norco in Sydney. Yes, I buy brand name milk, as well as brand name butter and yoghurt. Obviously this is not because I’m a fancy person – I’m currently having “things I don’t need cutlery for dipped into my one kilo bucket of hummus” for dinner on my bed with no pants on – but because I care about our dairy farmers. I mean, that’s very on-brand for me as a paradoxical Akubra-owner inner city leftie from the country) and didn’t have any cash. So I went to purchase my essential dairy using my debit card.

As it turns out, this joint has a $10 Eftpos minimum.

A bit steep, I reckon.

But it’s not so much the money that gets up my proverbial goat, it’s the pressure this puts on you to make a decision.

You’ve got an extra $7.50 to spend and only a few moments to do so. So do you go with a practical route or do you skip merrily down Treat Yo Self Lane? Do you go with your old favourites or use this unusual free pass to buy $7.50 worth of unnecessary items as a sign you should try something new? Or should you just say “the heck with this”, go home empty handed and start your week off with an empty, milk-less tea?

These are the questions you have to ask yourself under pressure. You have to think about moderately priced grocery items fast. It’s like an extremely underwhelming appearance on The Price Is Right, except you don’t get the consolation prize of having met Larry Emdur and a slick Parker pen to take home. The only person you meet is a surly shopkeeper and the only thing you take home is what’s left of your pride in a moist, dripping clump stinking up your pocket like an old fish wrapped in newspaper.

The worst part about this all is that the whole time, you’re being watched by the shopkeeper, who always seems to have something better to do than to keep their shop. They’re impatient, unimpressed and just want you to pay your money and get the heck out of there.

And look, I get that. I’d want me to get the heck out of my personal space too.

But I couldn’t go until I’d purchased something more than $10.

I panicked.

The first product I went for was a Bundaberg ginger beer.

I never usually buy soft drink, however I did yesterday because I was left in an extremely fragile state after hitting the beers with Dad (I haven’t decided if that will be a column or not yet, but expect more details at some point) and needed a little ginger fizz to settle my tummy.

I’m heading to Europe soon and my goal is to be “hot as fuck” for it, so I’m trying to watch what I put in my mouth. And I’m well aware that ginger beer is one of the worst soft drinks out there, but by golly are they tasty. And I guess after having one yesterday, my resolve was weakened. So with the building pressure to purchase something while under the influence of the beverage still being metabolised in my body, I caved and bought the sugary death syrup.

The second item I bought was a tin of tomatoes. In a vain attempt to make up for my sugary purchase, I decided I would someday make a rich, hearty pasta sauce and only use it on the low GI barley I am always banging on about. It could be a healthy triumph and turn everything around… but it will probably sit on my pantry shelf for seven months until I tell my housemate to use it.

I thought that, being in a corner store, this would put me well over $10. You usually pay through the nose for everyday groceries in places like this. And this was the one time I was hoping to be overcharged for a simple can of vegetables.

But no. I was still $1 short.

At this point the shopkeeper started throwing out suggestions, like bread or toilet paper. And it was most uncomfortable.

This guy doesn’t know me. He has no idea what I’ve been through. There’s no way he could understand my needs.

I mean, I already have plenty of much better bread at home and my housemates subscribe to the Who Gives a Crap toilet paper service, meaning I have an almost endless supply of loo paper.

I wanted to shout “you don’t know me, don’t tell me how to live my life” and “yeah, you’d like me to have more carbs in my house, wouldn’t you?!”, but I decided that berating a complete stranger for trying to help me make logical decisions at a corner store checkout probably wasn’t the best way to start the third week of FABuary.

So I meekly picked up a Whittaker’s Coconut Slab, paid for my groceries and got out of there.

And while I could use this opportunity to deeply examine how truly inept I am at making decisions under pressure, unpack what this means for my self esteem and determine ways I could address my issues, I’ve decided that avoidance is the moral of the story.

There’s no need to work on your issues if you can put it off, right?

So the conclusion I leave you with at the end of this rant is this: always carry cash.

Happy Valentines Day, one and all.

I hope you’ve been kind to someone, and that someone has been kind to you. But, more importantly, I hope you were kind to yourself today.

Because while love between two people is great and all, in the end, it’s going to come down to just you and yourself. Which is good, because you’ll probably shit yourself.

I know this is Classic Dannielle to turn something wholesome and harmless into a reminder that death is coming for you, but it’s not like that. It’s just about looking after Number One and treating your main girl (or boy, but honestly I don’t know a single gentlemen who reads this smut – even though I try to be as genderless as possible, sometimes it’s hard not to throw in a reference to pulling a tamp). Because it’s nice to be nice to yourself. You get to personally reap all the benefits of your benevolence, instead of paying 60 bucks for flowers for some other schmuck.

This is about is loving yourself, as the female magazines would say, and doing nice things for yourself.

You might not even realise you’ve treated yourself, but it’s good to take a look back at your day and think about the kind things you’ve done to Numero Uno (also known as commander Cool). It’s amazing how you can turn seemingly simple tasks into indulgent expressions of self-love.

Cleaning the toilet? You did it because you deserve a white, shiny bowl. Eating your vegetables? You’re giving yourself the gift of nourishment. Chopping your toenails? Saving yourself from cutting the back of your ankle with your other foot and having to explain to people who ask about the bandage that your big toenail grew so long that it actually injured you. That’s love!

Of course, you could tell this was going to turn into a listicle – partly because you could see the format of the post before reading, partly because I was obviously ramping up to it and partly because this appears to be an original post and it’s quite late – meaning I’m looking to half-arsedly cut some corners.

So here are a few things I did today that turned out to be things that I did for myself today. Enjoy:

Bought myself a one kilo tub of hummus: Because I love myself.

Bought myself two king-size, chunky bars of this vegan hazelnut chocolate I love that you can only get from health food stores: Because I love myself. And because they were on special. Not because I am vegan. This will be made very clear later in this listicle.

Listened to Beyoncé’s Formation three times: Because I love myself. Also, because I saw a really, really bad wax figure of Beyoncé today and needed to be reminded of how fabulous she really is. And maybe she reminded me of how fabulous I was, just maybe.

Awkwardly pulled down the inbuilt slip that was riding up under my skirt on the bus today in a fashion that made it look like I was hunting for loose change up there: Because I love myself. There was no way I was going to sit uncomfortably on that bus just for politeness sake.

Changed my razor head: Because I love myself. Because I’m too poor to afford fancy spa treatments so this is the only luxury I can get (and even that is rare, because those five-blade razors aren’t cheap, amiright?). Aaaaand because I went to the beach after work and the salty water my razor burn stung like the anger of 87 bees who’ve been on hold with Centrelink for more than two hours. I never actually got the whole “stinging legs after shaving” thing until today. And I never want to feel that way again.

Put moisturiser on my armpits: Because I had red-raw pits and didn’t thought cocoa butter would soothe it. It didn’t. It was like that infamous scene in Home Alone where Kevin uses aftershave – except I was an (apparently) fully-grown woman, not a prepubescent boy and instead of holding my face, I was clutching my armpits.

Had eggs on toast for dinner: Because I love myself and I love eggs. But mostly because I had nothing else in the fridge.

Listened to Norah Jones while I ate dinner: Because I love myself. And because I am a woman over 25 all alone on Valentines Day.

Considered giving up butter for Lent, but didn’t: Because I love myself. Sorry Jesus, I mean, I know that whole full-day-of-torture-and-humiliation-and-being-nailed-to-a-cross thing would have been rough, but butter is one of the only good things in my life right now.

Ate two reserve-grade-prop-in-a-country-footy-team-sized squares of the vegan chocolate after 7pm: Because I love myself. But mostly because I have poor self-control and bad decision-making skills.

Finishing this blog post abruptly and without ceremony: Because I’m tired as fuck.

Today’s post is a food diary.

It turns out that a diary about food can be just as personally revealing as a normal diary. Perhaps even more so, because most of the time your mature women’s thoughts don’t reveal that you ate a whole box of crumbed chicken about 24 hours or that you ate practically no vegetables over a two-day period.

I started keeping it, not for dietary reasons, but more because I bloody love reading detailed lists about what people eat in magazines. I like to think that someone out there is as obsessed with my as I am and therefore is interested in what I eat. And since no publisher is silly enough to put what I eat in a magazine, I decided the overcrowded cesspit that is the Internet was the place for it to be.

So here it is, my weekend in food.

Bone apple tea.

I’ll start at Friday afternoon, when my pants were removed and my feet were no longer imprisoned by the constraints of footwear – because that’s when the weekend really begins.

Friday 

6pm – a cup of tea. I’d just been for a run and even went as far as taking out the rubbish and putting my dried clothes away, so I deserved a little treat. Some people would opt for a wine or a beer, but I feel as if I’m sad enough without being someone who drinks alone on a Friday night.

7.30pm – put a tray of 10 chicken goujons into the oven. Technically they’re called “chicken fingers” on the box, but the term “goujon” seems a little fancier. Plus, it’s really fun to say in an accentuated bogan accent. It was perhaps one of the best running jokes at the Clifton Courier when I worked there.

7.35pm – ate a pickle from a jar in the fridge and a slice of the free loaf of bread one of my housemates scored. I may have been waiting for my chicken nuggets to cook, but I drizzled the sourdough in olive oil because I’m a classy adult… who loves oil. I also had about 7mls of hummus (not sure how you measure hummus, because it’s not a liquid but that gooey gift from the gods is no solid either – perhaps weight is best?). I only had a tiny bit because it turns out this hummus was the kind of hummus that works best on a sandwich and not licked off a finger. Again, I’m totes a stable grown up.

7.45pm – had another pickle and a second wedge of bread because I was bloody starving and was trying to be sociable with the people my housemate had over for wines. Made a point of telling them that I was wearing pants under the oversized men’s shirt I was wearing – but my slutty boxers were actually shorter than the overhang of the shirt, so perhaps this did little to esteem me as someone who dresses respectfully. There’s something about saying “I’m wearing pants, but they’re just too short for you to see them” that just doesn’t sound overly decorous, hey?

8pm – put a bra on under my shirt and went back out to the kitchen to collect my goujons. Cut up two tomatoes to eat with them because I recall seeing diet advice from Snookie (yes, that tiny quaffed woman from Jersey Shore) telling me to “eat salad with every meal”. And look, who am I to dispute the advice of Snookie?

Saturday

9am – a cup of tea, drawn out for as long as possible before I went to put my sports bra and sneakers on

1pm – soft boiled eggs on toast with a cup of tea. I’d been to a gym class at 10am but after a particularly slow walk back up the hill following said class, returned home at about 11.45am. Of course when I returned, I flopped on my bed, scrolled through my phone and then forced myself to shower. This then resulted in at least 40 minutes of post-shower lazing/psyching myself up to put on clothes. Hence why breakfast was so late.

2.30pm – a chunk of this fantastic vegan hazelnut chocolate that cost me eight bucks but don’t regret at all. It’s called Vego and you get it at healthfood stores, so you feel really smug eating it. I needed a treat to dangle in front of my like the proverbial carrot before the donkey cart to motivate me to finish writing my column for the paper next week, but I ended up just eating it before I finished.

3.30pm – a nectarine bought from this weird fancy grocery store I just discovered was just up the road from my place. All the hummus in there was more than four bucks, except for some gear that was on special for $2.99. If you read my 7.35pm entry from Friday night, you’ll understand why. It needed more garlic or something, it just wasn’t right.

5pm – a piece of bread with a whoooole lot of olive oil, because I love myself. I’d just had a nap after burning one of the candles my dedicated sponsor sent me (thanks sweetheart). Life was good.

5.30pm – the bread was good, but not enough. I checked the ingredients of that hummus I talked about earlier – no mention of garlic. There’s your problem. I stirred in olive oil and heated up a tortilla in a sandwich press for dunking. Again, because I love myself.

8pm – lost track of time because Daylight Savings messes with everything. Put on more goujons, partly because I love myself, partly because I have barely anything else in the fridge. I mean, I have two eggs, but that’s for breakfast tomorrow. And I have Corn Flakes, but I can’t let my Saturday night treat be cereal again, I have standards. I mean, the bar is set extremely low (I’m saving a $4.50 bottle of sparkling wine in my fridge for the next big celebration in my life), but I’ve got to have more pride than that. Sooooo Saturday night goujons it is.

8.30pm – whatever spinach was leftover in the bottom of the crisper. I was again reminded of the wisdom of Snookie and forced myself to eat the saddest salad I’ve had in a while. It was just undressed, slightly wilty spinach that I shoved into my mouth in huge clumps to eat it as quickly as possible and get it out of the way. It took me back to my childhood days, when I would swallow my beans with a glass of milk as if they were Herron headache capsules. “I love myself”, I whispered to myself , but I didn’t believe it at this point.

8.35pm – Now that the salad component of my meal was done away with, I was free to enjoy the 10 chicken goujons and two pickles like the piece of shit I am.

Sunday

9.30am – one cup of tea, consumed while I caught up on my food diary. It makes me look much more profesh to have a laptop out with my cup of tea, so this is a bit of a luxury. It makes me feel like some kind of Insta entrepreneur who lives a well-dressed, glamorous but busy life but prioritises self care. I long for that kind of atheistic lifestyle.

10am – another cuppa and two soft-boiled eggs on toast. I tried to eat this in a way that would look as if I were a social media influencer, but I really don’t have the table manners or the self-restraint for that. I used the last of my butter on that piece of toast, there was no way I was letting it get cold.

2.15pm – a falafel plate at a trendy Redfern café, washed down with 1.2 pomegranate mojitos. I was supposed to meet my friend for a classic hot-chook-and-bread-rolls lunch, but I’m not complaining about the change of plans. I thoroughly recommend a pommmojito, which is a name the café didn’t use, for the record.

4.30pm – a cup of tea and two spoonfuls of Greek yogurt. I was going to have a bigger serve of yog, but as you may have read in the earlier post, I got far too deep to go another.

8pm – a bowl of yoghurt with chopped walnuts and a drizzle of honey. Because enough time had passed for me to recognise that I was empty in two ways now, not just one.

I think I might be my own psychologist now, or at least my very sketchy life coach.

I was about to have a bowl of yogurt just now when I stopped and asked myself, “Are you hungry or do you just feel empty?”

I know.

I’m kind of taken aback.

Like, woah Dannielle.

Deep.

I’ve since started cooking my meals for the week ahead and (obviously) started writing this. I plan to have a shower afterwards and change into some delightful pyjamas. No yoghurt as of yet.

Interestingly, this will make a fitting precursor – or hors d’oeuvres, if you will – for my real post for today, which is a for dairy I’ve been keeping all weekend.

Expect a full report later this evening, after I’ve had dinner.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, February 1, 2018

My flat finally has a dining table and I can’t believe how much it has changed my life.

This account really isn’t going to do much in the way of convincing you that I’m living a put-together life, but then again nothing in this column ever really does that. If you could please imagine me wearing a pencil skirt* and carrying a nondescript takeaway coffee cup (that I plan on disposing responsibly) to counteract the scummy way this yarn portrays me, that might really help things.

* Preferably one that I bought from an actual store for women, and not something I paid two bucks for at a garage sale. Maybe pretend I shop at Cue or David Jones and that I go there so often that I have a loyalty card.

For as long as I’ve lived in this place, we have been table-less.

It was pointed out to me during the inspection-phase, with my flatmates explaining the previous tenant took the table. But there was a coffee table and it was big enough to support a spread of rustic bread and an assortment of cheese (as it turns out, I was the only prospective housemate to eat the free bread, which for some reason made me stand out as the successful applicant – so obviously the takeaway lesson there is to always eat bread when it is offered to you), so the table problem didn’t seem like much of an issue.

And it wasn’t, really.

As someone who has about 3.25 mates in Sydney, I wasn’t really in a position to be throwing dinner parties that needed amble dining space. And because I tend to chuck most of my meals in a bowl (my specialty is a “hearty chicken bowl” which roughly translates to “chunks of cooked chicken breast tossed into a family-sized serving of Gravox gravy, eaten out of a novelty-sized mug”*), I don’t really require a full dining set-up. I rarely find myself cooking anything that requires a steak knife to carve into it, so I have been able to get by simply by balancing my plate on my lap while sitting on the couch.

* It will be a key feature of my recipe book/biography, to be released at a later date… probably after being photocopied at the local library. 

Let’s not forget the joys of being table-less means a free pass to eat in front of the television, which allows you to continue distracting yourself with a screen instead of staring your sad reality squarely in the face. The television aspect of this transforms the situation from “pathetic 20something who can’t afford a table” to “young woman living like a queen because she can finally eat in the lounge room”.

And we did have an outdoor setting in case we really needed to sit at a table to eat. The problem with this arrangement, however, was that the plastic chairs collected water and there are always these pale splodges on the table that I’ve made an extremely uneducated guess to be bat wee residue. Sure, the table does the job of being a surface upon which to place food, but you run the risk of getting a wet bum and possibly contracting Hendra.

It was inconvenient at times, but it was liveable.

However, when one of my flatmates became swept up with the inevitable gust of optimistic productivity that comes with the New Year, she found a second-hand table for us. It could fit into her car and it was cheap enough to take from the money left in the joint account by the previous tenant. And sure, the table isn’t particularly large or glamorous, in fact, it had specs of glitter that don’t wipe off and a faint stickiness no amount of spray and wipe seems to remove, but it’s a table.

And holy moly as it changed everything.

Yesterday I ate eggs on toast without having to pick up the bread and eating it like a sad, eggy pizza*. I’m writing this at the table with a cup of tea next o my laptop instead of being in bed, with my tea dangerously perched on a book on my mattress. And yesterday I was as able to offer a visiting friend a seat while she sipped her water. We talked about work and her long-term relationship and savings – all grown-up topics of conversation that would have had a more pathetic tone to it should we have been sitting cross-legged on the aged carpet.

* Another idea for my recipe book. I plan on calling it In The Kitchen with Dannielle, and staging several awkward photoshoots to make it. 

It may be a few pieces of cheap wood, but this feels like a game changer. Before now, things were bleak. Sloppy. Everything had to be strategically bite-sized and in bowl-form. But now the future seems brighter. More sophisticated. With the potential for home-cooked steak.

And look, this whole column wasn’t just a 600-word build up for a crappy pun but it seems like the only way that I can end this: I guess the tables have turned.

I went shopping today.

I walked into a bustling Westfield and decided to treat myself.

And you know what I came out with?

An iron and a financial self-help book.

I wanted to buy more shirts I can get away with wearing at work because I generally have like three that I cycle between at the moment.

You could say this is because I have a “work uniform” that I have pre-arranged minimise the number of choices I have to make to prevent decision-making fatigue. You might argue that this is being smart. That I’m a productive, synergising wizard who deserves a write up in an aspirational magazine that advertises $647 desk chairs and $70 watering cans (yeah, I saw an ad for one costing that much the other day and it infuriated me – just another blister on the fiery ulcer of rage building up in the pit of my stomach).

But in actual fact, it’s because my wardrobe is still a system of washing baskets and a suitcase underneath my bed. They’re kind of like those storage drawers built into fance beds (a savvy friend of mine has one and it’s fabulous) except there are extremely dysfunctional and in no way stylish. The thing with these baskets is that I can’t see what’s buried underneath, so I end up just gabbing what’s near the top of the pile. And whatever is worn is then washed and stuffed back in the basket right on top again. And so, the circle of life continues until the cheap shirt is so worn and thin that it becomes inappropriate to wear in public.

Another factor in the cycle of shirty monotony is the fact that I didn’t have an iron, but owned a few shirts that needed pressing. I’ve always been someone who preferred to buy clothes that didn’t really need ironing. One of the many perks of op shopping is that most of the items have been worn and ironed to death and snap back to their ironed form after a wash. So most of my clothes are able to get by without ironing provided to hang them the right way on the washing line.

But in my apartment life a trendy, high-density area, there is no room for a washing line. And I have no iron.

So the pool of shirt options is even more limited.

I was going to buy a new shirt.

But then I realised if I bought an iron, I’d be able to wear the three or four shirts sitting at the bottom of the clothes basket.

I was making a sustainable choice.

I also picked up a copy of this financial planning self help book my friend recommend to my broke arse.

I walked right by the decorative homewares section. I didn’t look twice at the Lindt bunnies. I didn’t even stop at the trashy magazine aisle.

And here’s the kicker: I paid for the two most grown up items you could possibly find in a department store which has a profit margin bolstered purely on impulse buys from women aged 25-50 looking to fill an empty hole in their lives with succulents and candles in loyalty card points.

That means that my clothes iron and self-help book were essentially free.

I think I’ve turned a corner.