Playing things by ear is a life motto that many seem to be naturally born with, along with a lovely chilled out, spontaneous, let's just go with the flow personality. Sadly, this is not me. I like having a plan and I certainly don't like that plan being ruined. 

Since we were blessed with the delightful global pandemic and all the restrictions that came with it, one of the best things I've learnt is to really, really try to chill the hell out and take things as they come. It's much easier said than done and believe you me I still struggle with the complete lack of future planning, but learning to be more flexible has really helped me.

When you're a forward planner it almost feels like a safety blanket. Feeling down? Take control, plan something with a friend, book a holiday, go for drinks after work. Unmotivated? Book some annual leave, spend weeks deciding what to do with it. The reality of now is that many, like me, have to take a certain amount of days of annual leave before the end of March and are thinking, quite literally, what the hell am I gonna do to pass 5 whole days.

Without this option, without the reward of all those days hard at work, it's left all of us unsure of how to move forwards with things, how to be motivated. 

Now onto the good stuff. How do I convince myself that I can be like this? How do I locate that part that's deep, deep inside of me and try to care less about my complete lack of plans?

1. We reframe what we can look forward to, like making a lame heart shape with foam in my coffee that morning, or getting excited about a plant looking a little greener than the day before.

2. We make the most of what we have, I call my Mum, chat to my sister, read a book, watch a film.

3. We dream instead of plan, I still think about being on a boat in the middle of Lake Garda, but I don't book anything in ('cause Covid).

4. We focus on the day ahead, not the years ahead, I can control my mindset for today, but not for the year.

5. We do relaxing things, like take baths, walks and make hot chocolates. 

And if none of the above works, just order a takeaway and put Netflix on, and do that for the foreseeable future.

Imi x

I've come across far too many people in this world who claim to dislike chocolate orange. Terry's Chocolate Oranges, the chocolate orange quality street, chocolate orange cookies, you name it and they hate it. 

All very bizarre, but it won't stop me baking with my favourite flavours.. one of the things being this chocolate orange cake! It's very easy and looks amazing with the chocolate orange segments on top. Please let me know if you've given it a go!

Add your cocoa powder to the boiling water and mix until a smooth paste is formed, then add this to the mixture.

Step 4:

Pour into two sandwich cake tins and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Step 5:

Make the ganache by heating up your cream to almost boiling and then pour over the chocolate chunks. Stir until all the chocolate has melted and combined. You can use it for the middle of the cake as well, or do what I did and mix up a quick buttercream with more orange zest, butter and icing sugar.