It was always going to be a fantastic night as it’s the Strictly Come Dancing final. I’m just a bit obsessed with Strictly! In week one I wanted Chris to be out as early as possible, I wouldn’t have believed it if you would have told me I’d be voting for him multiple times in the final. Chris went from novice to being an amazing dancer. This past month Team Cola (as Chris & Ola are known) have given me goosebumps every week without fail, and their Charleston is easily my favourite dance of the series.

Once Strictly had finished I could transfer my attention to the snow. We had a flurry/blizzard earlier and now have well over a foot of snow. It’s soft fluffy snow and so pretty. Unfortunately not great for making snowmen as it just falls apart. As it was after 10pm I had no one to call on for a snow ball fight so I decided to go on a wander by myself. I was so overwhelmed by the snow that I didn’t realise I was cold at all until I returned to my warm flat 20 minutes later! Of course whilst on my wander I took a few photos and listened to Christmas music on my iPhone.

It has been a rather exciting, amazing and beautiful evening! And it’s less than a week until Christmas…

My blog moved to helenthornber.com on 15th March 2009. Since then I’ve had over 10,500 pageviews from over 5000 visitors, which may be nothing compared to Google, but is a big achievement for me (I feel like I should be making pretty graphics with all the stats like the ones I shared with you yesterday!)

1. The Real Me
My most popular blog post this year has been ‘The Real Me‘ (and not far behind is it’s follow up ‘The Real Me – Part 2‘). It was a blog I’d been unsure about writing so I’m glad my honesty about mental health has had such a positive response.

2. Geek Chic
Another popular blog. A surprise hit that sums up my own combination of girlie and geeky!

3. Waterstone’s Woes
I’m not known for keeping my opinion to myself so every so often I have a bit of a rant. Of all of them this has been the most popular. I still think that Waterstone’s should hire me as head honcho and then all their problems would be solved!

4. Adventures of a novice foodie
Back in August I decided to make the most of my summer holiday by cooking up a storm. Once of my proudest moments this year had to be successfully making sushi that looked like the real deal and tasted yummy. (The giraffe fried egg was pretty impressive too!)

5. Blog 101
Reaching my 100th blog was a big milestone that proved I could stick at it. But it was Blog 101 that I really enjoyed writing. Instead of waiting for the day I’m famous enough for the BBC to invite me in I decided to do it myself! Watch this space in 2010 for ‘Strictly Blog Dancing’, ‘Have I got Blog For You’ and ‘Top Blog’!

As luck, or fate, or whatever you believe in, would happen I stumbled upon Jo’s Kitchen last weekend and discovered a treasure trove of recipes that appeal to my tastebuds. I’ve already made three!

Chicken & Spinach Curry – My favourite curry and a delicious recipe

Spicy Chorizo & Pepper Soup – possibly the most delicious soup I have ever tasted

Ginger Cookies – make sure you have one as soon as they come out of the oven, nothing beats a warm cookie (don’t burn your mouth!!!)

I’ve also been experimenting myself with Sushi. I was very impressed with my efforts. So was @GraemeWatson who said it was “damn good shit” which I think means I did a really good job. Thanks to Make My Sushi for all the instruction and recipes I needed. I made California Roll, Prawn Nigiri and a loose interpretation of Dragon roll sushi, as Durham is unfortunately not a hotbed of sushi grade fresh eel. I also made a prawn and pepper tempura to go with it. All in all it was very yummy!

Another culinary adventure was the Giraffe fried egg…

Of course as well as all this new stuff there was room for firm favourites. One of which is Tuna, Red Pepper Salsa and new potatoes. It wouldn’t be right to write about all this food and leave you without at least one recipe of my own.

Tuna, Red Pepper Salsa and new potatoes

• Tuna (however big you want it)
• New Potatoes (however many you want to eat)
• Red Pepper Salsa

Red Pepper Salsa (serves 4)

10-15 Cherry Tomatoes (depending on size)

½ Red Pepper

½ Red Onion

½ Red chilli

Juice of ½ Lime

½ tsp sugar

small bunch of coriander

1. Finely chop tomatoes, peppers and red onion and put in a bowl
2. Add the sugar and lime juice and mix
3. Finely chop the chilli and coriander (I remove the chilli seeds, but that’s up to you)
4. Mix again and leave to rest

Putting it all together…

• Cook the new potatoes (wash, boil until soft and serve!)
• Once the potatoes are done put a couple of drops of olive oil (virgin, extra virgin, extra virgin with added virgin… whatever you want!) in a frying pan and wipe around with kitchen towel to give a fine coating
• Heat frying pan until it is really hot, turn down to a medium heat and then place the tuna in it
• Cook the tuna until it is done to your desired amount (I like it medium) turning half way through cooking.
• Put potatoes and tuna on a plate and three or so spoonfuls of salsa on top and enjoy!

My first major collection was badges. My favourite badge I got for my sixth birthday. It was a silver holographic badge that sparkled rainbow colours in the light with a big ‘6’ on it. I loved it. This was just the first of many things I loved that were colourful and sparkly.

Then came the Trolls. I collected them wherever I could. I had small trolls, big trolls and old trolls (one my grandma had owned for a long time). They had every different colour of hair you could imagine. I must have spent a majority of my pocket money on obtaining trolls. I loved them.

Our local library had a display cabinet you could sign up to occupy for a week. One proud week I got to display my badges and my trolls. Happy times.

I collected stickers for sticker albums. I remember Snow White and Gladiators, though I didn’t complete either. The only one I did complete was my Boyzone sticker album. Which brings me onto that collection, or rather my teen obsession.

Between the ages of eleven and fourteen I adored Boyzone. Despite early on working out that Stephen Gately was gay I still hoped he might marry me, or at least be my best friend. My walls were covered in their posters. At one stage you couldn’t see an inch of wallpaper in my room, they were even on my ceiling.  I spent every last penny on magazines they were in, and I recorded every TV appearance on video. Somewhere in my childhood bedroom there are folders of magazine cuttings and videos a friend and I spent one summer cutting together of all the stuff we had on tape. Thankfully I grew out of it an appropriate age, and even more surprisingly couldn’t care less that they are back together now.

Following that I didn’t collect anything for a while. I loved sunflowers and had lots of those, but it was never a ‘collection’ as such. I suppose I did, and still do, collect leaflets and postcards of art and exhibitions I love (I have a box full) and I have always had lots of books. But that’s because I can’t bear parting with anything I have read and enjoyed.  I suppose the books I have read are a collection, and say more about me than anything else.

Six or seven years ago Boots ran a promotion. Collect vouchers and exchange them for a stuffed toy. My housemate and I put together our vouchers and became the proud owner of our Boots Giraffe. I loved the giraffe, but I am never quite sure how it got from being that one, to how ever many I own now (I have never counted them!). I think I can probably tell people where 90% of my giraffes came from, most of them anchored to specific events and places. I find myself on a giraffe hunt wherever I go.

Finally I started to collect shoes. The first pair of shoes I loved were black strappy sandals from Topshop, bought for my May Ball at the end of GCSEs in 1999. They cost £35, which was a fortune when I was 15, but I had to have them. It is an appreciation, which grew into an obsession. These days I’d say it’s more an affection. Sadly now I’m living up north the opportunities to take my beloved heels out on the town are few and far between. I can’t bear the thought of buying any more beautiful pairs for them to sit in my wardrobe and rarely see the light of day.

There is still one man who can revive my shoe obsession. That is Christian Louboutin. I can’t describe the feeling of being in the Louboutin shop in Greenwich Village, NYC. It was amazing. It was that day I bought my Simple Pump 100 in patent black, and they bring me joy every day.

There are other things I could collect, but I try not to get sucked in. Between giraffes and shoes I have more than enough to spend my money on. If I did have a third collection it would be Doctor Who stuff. But I know if I started with that I wouldn’t stop and would bankrupt myself in the process. As a teenager I dreamed of having a room full of Disney figures and toys, mainly Pixar stuff, as well as the Little Mermaid. Maybe if I have children one day I’ll have an excuse to collect those.

I can’t help but wonder what it is in human nature that makes us collect. Having a group of things that gives us pleasure from looking at or using them, or even just thinking about them and knowing they exist.

After finally leaving work about an hour and a half later than planned on the Friday, then getting home about two and a half hours later than planned – courtesy of Tooting High Street turning into a car park – I made it back home to get changed and pick up the parents and head into London.

So this is where the reviews begin…

Following further delay (the northern line this time) we found S (One of my best mates) outside Baker St station, she’d thankfully found someone to call and natter with whilst we’d spent twenty minutes admiring the inside of a dark concrete tube. Once free of delays we headed for Giraffe. Now if you have never visited a Giraffe you simply must, it’s an eclectic ‘grown-up but full of silliness’ family restaurant with the most amazing food and the friendliest waiting staff you could meet. On this occasion we chose Marylebone (the same place I celebrated my birthday last year) but previously have also been to Royal Festival Hall (where we celebrated my mothers 60th last November)… and I imagine whichever you choose there will be people falling over themselves to provide you with whatever you ask whether that’s a balloon, plastic giraffes, scintillating conversation or their to die for cheesecake. The beauty of this place is that they love people. Take my mother as an example (she is often an example), she just loves to make conversation with everyone about anything, in giraffe she is not only tolerated but positively welcomed with open arms, as if she were an old friend back for more of their delicious food. When she starts rather scientifically discussing the ins and outs of making a black coffee (surely just coffee and hot water?) it turns into a full blown and involved anecdote with the waitress sitting down at the table and positively encouraging the chattering. Although once upon a time I would have been a brooding and cringing teenager in this situation, I now seem to freely join in… I feel sorry for any children I may have in the future, I am going to be an embarrassment on a huge scale! I have gone off on a tangent… and I could go on for quite some time about Giraffe, however I think by now you have gathered that this is one place I most definitely love.

So once we were thoroughly fed and ready for another couple of drinks S and I headed off to find the animators in a bar just of Regents St (will remain nameless as quite frankly it wasn’t good enough to deserve a mention, but not bad enough to deserve avoidance). We took a rather long detour down to my lack of skill in identifying the correct time to turn left, but it was a pleasant mistake that left us meandering amongst Vivianne Westwood and Issey Miyake, and eventually with a look of horror on my face when we passed Jimmy Choo and her response was “Who? …I’m no slave to Vogue myself (by a long way) but not knowing your Manolos from your Choos?!

Once animators were found I decided Mojitos were in order (having just had the beautifully made Mellow Yellow Mojito at Giraffe I should have stopped before I ordered a mediocre cocktail) but order I did, and the bar man made such an effort, which led me to ponder that perhaps someone’s cocktail making technique shows their general attitude in their life (well their love life anyway) – the guy that served me was trying very hard, and it seemed very important to him to get it just right, however I did end up being a bit disappointed but of course didn’t tell him, he would have been crushed… instead just avoided ordering anything from him again! – poor bloke, I hope I’m wrong and his love life is a bit more of a success than that!

Whilst supping my less than great Mojito we were approached by Urban Chill. I hadn’t heard of them before, but a couple of my mates were familiar. The concept is that these guys and gals trained in massage (back, shoulder and Indian head massage) pop round bars in London and see if anyone fancies taking five to ten minutes out for a massage, at the end of it you pay them what you feel it was worth. Well me being me it was an opportunity and it was random, so I was up for it. Off I went to the fairly quite bit of the bar, sat back relaxed and experienced ten minutes of bliss (and also good conversation, no awkward silences). I did think afterwards that most people might find it quite strange to be manhandled in the middle of a bar by a bloke you’d met five minutes earlier, but it was a lovely experience. I came back to the table looking “radiant” (to quote Charlie) and parted with a tenner, the combination of the ingenuity of the concept and the sheer lovliness of the massage made it worth that. If you’re someone that has frequent professional massages I can’t say how much you’ll get out of it, but if like me you are non-stop always-on and keep saying ‘I must go get myself a massage’ then it is worth parting with a few of your hard earned pounds for the Urban Chill experience – and for those cynics out there, if you don’t enjoy it and are a tight git you don’t have to pay a thing!

When they finally turfed us out of the bar we headed to the tube (with varying degrees of lurching) and homewards bound. Not before we had (most likely) pissed off a number of other tube users with our “tube surfing” challenge … I think all other passengers escaped unscathed!

After not nearly enough sleep, Saturday started surprisingly well – Suzi made bacon and egg butties – and then I headed out to London with Mum and Dad to spend the day wandering around the west end and visiting The National Gallery, finally introducing them to Wagamamas and then going to see ‘Treats’ at the Garrick Theatre.

No one is more surprised than me that I have seen a play on opening weekend, I am more of a last minute kind of person I spend my life intending to go and see plays and exhibitions only to find that I finally get round to going the day after they have ended. But here I was watching a new West End play on its third night. I don’t want to say too much and ruin it (as I’m about to recommend you go see it) but I will say that it needs to be taken as a whole, the comedy is in the words, but the drama is in the actions and reactions… I was so absorbed that the time flew by, I don’t think I’ve been that immersed by anything on stage for a long time. Definitely recommended!

Well I have babbled on quite enough so I will leave you be… I’m now tup in the North East in the land of the Geordies having a week away from work. Mind you as soon as I arrived in Newcastle I managed to get myself a taxi driver who’d been a union rep in for my company in the area I work in until he’d moved up here in recent years, which meant the entire taxi journey became 20 minutes of discussing the managers, the union and the company… not exactly a break from work. Luckily he was a nice chap and so it wasn’t such an awful conversation. I will regale you with stories of my time up here later in the week… (Don’t expect much, so far I’ve made cups of tea and helped with dinner, whilst avoiding nappy changing duties)