Can we get something right straight off the bat? Man-buns. There’s a simple test – if you are male, and you’ve tied up your locks like some weird hairy sphincter on top of your head, you’re a cock. And not a nice cock, mind – we’re talking a fishy old schlong. In fact no – if you had a sphincter in the middle of your head, that would actually make you an arse. I can’t bear it. It doesn’t so much as make my skin crawl as force it inside-out through cringing. Back when I had long hair, the only ‘style’ I succumbed to was brushing it, and that was only when I felt there might be a boiled sweet in amongst the tangles. There’s an advert on TV now for Trivago which ends with a supposedly-dreamy shot of a woman asleep in a man’s arms as he carries her down a hotel corridor to bed. He wouldn’t be bad looking, but because of the man bun, you know that night is going to end with her face-down on a pillow and him accidentally calling her Patrick at the height of climax. There’s no masculinity, no ruggedness – a weak, effete affectation which should only end up one way – in an acid bath. Too far? I say not far enough!

Tonight’s been a bit of a wash-out – I was originally supposed to be out for dinner with work colleagues to say goodbye, good luck and thanks for all the laughs to one of the partners I work for, but thanks to the incompetence of Northumberland Council and their inability to fit a bloody toilet correctly that didn’t happen, as I was summoned to my gran’s house. Water was leaking through the ceiling again where they incorrectly fitted the toilet. Well they didn’t fit the toilet on the ceiling, obviously. Anyway, it turns out it had been leaking since Wednesday and she had been patiently waiting for the council to come out, completely unable to use her upstairs loo, and having to totter down the stairs and to the outside loo (it’s a really old house, we’re not that Northern) every time she needed a tinkle in the dead of night. I mean for fucks sake, she’s a very slow mover – she can go upstairs with a fiver in her purse and by the time she’s made it back downstairs it’s only worth £4.50. So this was a crap situation, and after my sister and I spent a bit of time bellowing at the council, they remedied it. Bloody ridiculous. I had an image in my head of her sat on the outside toilet, Puzzler in hand, frozen in time like Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining. Thankfully that didn’t happen, although…

Haha. We did get to spend some more time with my sister and lovely nephew though. I stand by everything I said earlier about children being red-faced poo-factories with all the charm of an ingrown toenail, but my nephew is the exception to prove the rule. Although, that said, the first thing he did when he heard we were on the way was immediately void his bowels – but then Paul does the same thing when I tell him we’re out of Muller Lights so isn’t life a rich tapestry.

Paul and I were chatting away in bed last night before sleep, discussing what we could do with the blog next. Our next idea that we’re going to build into the recipes is to have one recipe a week from a European country. Easy to begin with – we have Armenia first on the randomised list, but Kosovo is the third. Going to be a steep learning curve but well, our Slimming World journey is all about new flavours and learning to cook – so look forward to that!

Tonight’s recipe doesn’t look all that. In fact, if I’m being searingly honest, it sorta looks like something you might happen across in the pan of a public toilet after a heavy night. I know. But it tasted really good, and it’s our soup of the week – cabbage, kidney bean and sausage broth!

Mmm. How inviting! Look, you try making cabbage soup look appealing. If Roald fucking Dahl couldn’t manage it, I sure as hell can’t. So stop being so judgemental, sheesh.

to make cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: 1.5l of chicken stock, half a big white cabbage sliced thinly (see tip below), eight grilled weight-watchers cumberland sausages (1/2 syn each) cut up into chunks, three tablespoons of tomato puree, two garlic cloves very finely grated, 1 shallot sliced, 1 teaspoon of dried basil, 1 teaspoon of celery seeds (or use fennel seeds) (or omit altogether, I’m not your keeper) and 1/2tsp of dried thyme – you’ll also need a tin of kidney beans.

tip: I bang on about this all the time, but if you’re a clumsy oaf like me in the kitchen, get yourself a decent mandolin. They’ll slice things perfectly for you, and you just need to be a bit careful not to slice off your fingertips. I bought mine for £10 from Amazon and the link is here – you’ll never look back. Honest, you’ll thank me for it. Along similar lines, I use a microplane grater for the garlic (and it can be used for parmesan too) and you can find that for less than a tenner on Amazon, here. You can do the job with a knife too, you don’t need fancy equipment for Slimming World – but they do make things easier!

to make cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup, you should:

recipe: saute the garlic and the shallots for a few moments on a high heat – don’t burn it though. Then, tip everything in bar the sausage and beans, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Add a bit of salt, your ticker can handle it. Chuck in the sausage and beans, and cook until the cabbage is soft and cooked. Done!

It’s more of a brothy soup – lots of liquid, but tastes good. If you like your soup so thick you could artex a ceiling with it, you’re out of luck – but if that’s what you like, try my super-speedy soup.

extra-easy – yes, and only one syn! Cabbage is a superfree food and a much maligned vegetable – don’t rule it out! It serves four, and the sausages are the syns – but what’s one syn between friends?

Enjoy, enjoy.

J