My kitchen smells like cat pee. Considering I don’t own a cat (yet), this is not a sentence I expected to type. A kitchen can smell like many things – the toast we burned at the weekend, the flapjacks I made on Tuesday, the cacio e pepe spaghetti we ate last night – but I…… Continue reading Life Skills Unlocked: Solving the Riddle of the Strong Smell of Cat Pee
I am dogsitting Lia at the moment, and she’s taken a particular shine to the rug beneath my dining table. This is fine (she is a spoiled baby of a black labrador), but she had a distinct doggy odour going on and I started to worry that it would permeate the rug forever, so I…… Continue reading Life Skills Unlocked: Dog Washing
Something happened last weekend that blew my mind: I realised that I have been eating incorrectly my entire life. But Quinn, I hear you say, if you have been managing to successfully manoeuvre food from your plate to your mouth for the past three decades, how can you possibly say you have been eating incorrectly?…… Continue reading Life Skills Unlocked: Proper Etiquette
I walked into the Katakurakan onsen with trepidation clawing up my throat. A smiling lady handed me a small towel and a small key at the window of reception, then gestured gracefully towards a door on the left. This was something I’d noticed a lot since arriving in Japan; every Japanese person I encountered seemed to…… Continue reading Stripping Off in Suwa, Japan
If you’ve never heard the word before, ‘millinery’ is the word for the art of making fancy hats and fascinators*. I actually have never worn a fancy hat or fascinator. Not because I don’t like them – they can be pretty amazing – but because anything small and girlie makes me feel self-conscious and stupid,…… Continue reading Life Skill Unlocked: Millinery
When I was about seven years old, I used to sneak into my grandfather’s study. I would tiptoe past the piano, crawl behind the burgundy leather Chesterfield, feel along the bookshelf for the small metal key, and slip it into the lock on the cabinet below. I would turn the key feeling like Alice down…… Continue reading Life Skill Unlocked: Cocktail-Making
When Do I Get The Manual? 