Brownies. And boots.

In the course of my day, a day which generally involves hoofing (or hobbling, in my case) up the road to the tube station at what feels like the crack of dawn, even in Spring when it's light at 5am, commuting in a tube train full of sullen, withdrawn, unmade up fellow Londoners, zipping (or hobbling) from meeting to meeting, poring over policy documents with appalling grammar and worse spelling, desperately trying to keep my email inbox to under a thousand emails (I'm like a builder with my emails. "About a thousand". I definitely got that from my last builder, his stock reply to the tremulous question "How much do you reckon it would cost?"), commuting again, and tearing (hobbling) around doing various overdue chores, an average of around 20 people a day, all of them total strangers, ask me about The Boot. This remains a mystery to me. I am of course aware that I am all too restrainedly British and it would probably take a full on collapse in the street by some unfortunate for me to break out of my Cone of Silence and ask someone about themselves, but still. Comes a point, usually around 11am, by which time I've heard the well worn phrase "so what have you done to yourself then", delivered with the hint of accusation in the tone, at least 10 or 11 times, when I come over distinctly curmudgeonly. But, it looks as if for as long as I am going to try and commute unevenly to work and back wearing the bloody thing I am going to have to put up with it. Brits appear to be endlessly fascinated by Physical Difference. They want to stare but that's embarrassing so they shoot covert looks every one and half seconds. And they ask. I think the tone of, you must be one of those losers who is clearly totally incapable of looking after yourself, is a form of self protection. If you've had some catastrophic accident, then there's that much less chance that I will! I don't do anything in my life sufficiently interesting to qualify for a mishap as dramatic as yours! Et cetera. Well, I've done the full and frank explanation, hoping to bore them into disinterest, but that hasn't worked. I have tried full scale five star abuse (station master at Charing Cross: that thing on your foot is HUGE. Me: unlike your PENIS then), and frankly that hasn't worked either, in fact it has elicited a response of a much less helpful kind and I think you can picture the scene. You can't really be that abusive to people unless you are capable of exiting the scene at speed and speed is just not on the menu for me, not by a long chalk. So. I finally stumbled on the perfect response yesterday wnen yet another stranger, a woman carrying heavy shopping bags, on her way into the shop in front of the bus stop where I was waiting, surgical boot stuck out conspicuously, stops in her tracks, asks SWHYDTYT, and I have an epiphany. I look her straight in the eye, unblinkingly, and reply "Nothing". Oh right then, she says, looking at me uncertainly and shifting from foot to foot. She disappears into the shop. Success! I have found the perfect response. Since yesterday I have deployed it a further 15 times. It's working. Time to celebrate. If we weren't experiencing the wettest drought since records began I would get on with my planting - I am an erratic gardener with an uncertain track record, but each year I plant veg seeds with great enthusasism. But rain makes the ground slippery and frankly I do not want to end up with surgical boots on both legs. So. Baking it is. Baking it always was really, and the slightest excuse will find me in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, surgical boot abandoned by the sofa, me kneeling on a chair with healing foot wrapped in towels. This sort of celebration requires something sweet that you can produce lots of. So that has to be brownies. Not just any brownies. White chocolate ones. I experiment with brownies regularly and I have fads - raspberry and cream cheese brownies, pecan and orange brownies, the list is endless. But brownies with chunks of white chocolate in them remind me of childrens' birthday parties, so that is what we will make. Nigella Lawson has a brilliant recipe for this. I can no longer make it out in the book as I have used it so often it's smeared with butter, icing sugar and melted chocolate, so the pages have stuck together. So I pull it up online, roll up my sleeves, deep breaths, switch on Kiss FM. Let the Magic Begin.