I promised to share the arancini recipe from a while ago, but of course we were all too busy eating it for me to remember what I’d done. In essence, I had some leftover squash risotto (roast the squash while you make your risotto – lots of butter in the base of the big saucepan, whatever wine is lying around, salt, etc etc, roast the squash until it’s soft and crispy at the edges), some mozzarella and a strange sudden craving. 

Beforehand, pull the mozzarella apart until you have half-thumb-sized pieces, and chop some sun-dried tomatoes. Beat an egg or two in bowl; a large couple of puffs of flour in another; a good few handfuls of breadcrumbs in a third (I just blitz some heels of bread in a food processor or equivalent). 

Coat your whole palm and a tiny bit of the base of your fingers with a large tablespoon of cold risotto. In the centre of the spread, put your thumb-sized bit of mozzarella and few snatches of dried tomato, then slowly close your fist and seal the whole thing up with pure skill. Make all the balls. 

While a big, heavy-based pan full of vegetable oil is heating up (you want the oil to be an inch or so deeper than the diameter of the balls), dip each ball in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. When a cube of bread (leftover from the blitzing?) cooks fairly swiftly in the oil, without burning or lying there absorbing oil, you can start putting in the balls, 4 or so at a time. Turn them occasionally. It won’t take long. Five minutes? I can’t remember, but I know I had to keep from picking them up from the boiling oil with my fingers, they looked that pleasing. 

Once golden brown all over, remove not with fingers, but with a slotted spoon, then cook the remaining batches. Serve with some kind of sauce, if you like, or not, also delicious. I love it when a recipe goes as well as I’d like. 

Summer continues to be good. My 4,000% healthy obsession with this old Lip Sync video has given me a new hobby (bicep curls, just like I always dreamed as a little girl) and we’ve swum outside enough for me to be on first name terms with several herons and most of the local midges. Friends teach me about local trees and plants, and the water temperature tells me so much more about the turning seasons than any calendar. We pick brambles, and apples, cherry plums and an enormous cucumber that has suddenly appeared in the little greenhouse. I think that maybe dreading the future doesn’t mean I can’t occasionally enjoy the present. 

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I’ve been listening to: 

1. This excellent look at boredom, something that’s massively undervalued. We tech away as much discomfort as we can with TVs and phones and iPads, when actually most boredom is unspeakably valuable, both as a creative force and as a bonding tool. 

2. Have I recommended this before? I’ve listened to it so many times. To be fair, I’d listen to absolutely anything with Michael Sheen, such is his voice and his ambition to do even a bit of good. Please don’t ever tell me anything awful about him. 

3. This Criminal episode is just lovely. 

4. I hadn’t realised for how long I’d been saving this, but Debbie Reynolds (when she wasn’t being interrupted by a giddy Alec Baldwin HEM HEM) was just the damn best. Go and watch Singin’ in the Rain to remind yourself.