1. What was the most sick that you've ever been? It’s a toss-up between when I had pleurisy one Christmas (I was about seven or eight), swine flu, or covid.

2. What disease are you afraid of getting? Alzheimer’s - though I’m not sure if I’m more terrified of me getting it, or Li.

3. Are you a big baby when it comes to taking medicine/shots for your illnesses? Not at all. But I am both very forgetful and pretty susceptible to the “I feel better, I don’t need this anymore” trap - currently going through it with my asthma meds, actually.

4. Is going to the doctor really THAT bad? Yes. Especially with my joints - I’ve spent thirty years not being listened to.

5. Would you have the flu twice a month if you were paid $1,000 for having it? Absolutely not. I’ve only had the flu twice in my life, and both times it knocked me off my feet for 8–10 days. I’ll happily never have it again. There’s a reason I get my flu jab every year.

Challenge #3
Journaling prompt: What are your favourite summer-associated foods?

Strawberries and cream, obviously. Is it even summer if you haven’t eaten strawberries until your fingers are stained red and you feel a little too full but still somehow tempted to go back for just one more? Ideally they’re a little overripe and still warm from the sun, and the cream is cold and just barely sweetened. That’s the classic.

But my favourite summer foods aren’t just about flavour - they’re rooted in memory, tangled up with the smell of grass and sunblock, the buzz of bees, the distant whine of a hosepipe being uncoiled.

When I was a kid, my dad had a huge garden - and not just that, he also had an allotment, so we were always growing something. It felt like magic, honestly, how much came out of the ground every year. Apples, pears, plums, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, loganberries, rhubarb. I think at one point we even had blackcurrants and redcurrants, though I might be imagining that part. The raspberries were my favourite - I’d eat them straight off the plant, warmed by the sun, until I made myself absolutely sick. (Still worth it. Every time.)

We had so much fruit that my childhood summers were full of jam-making and crumbles and endless bowls of stewed fruit with custard. We'd freeze some too - bags and bags of berries packed away for winter, though somehow the frozen ones never quite tasted the same.

And then there were the vegetables. Potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, cabbage, marrow. I loved the peas most of all - so sweet and crisp, straight from the pod. But I wasn’t allowed to help with the pea harvest anymore after a certain age. There was an incident involving a suspiciously empty bucket and one very full stomach. (Apparently, you can’t be trusted when you come back with more pod than pea. Who knew?)

There’s something about food you’ve watched grow that tastes different - more alive, maybe, more rooted. Summer still tastes like that for me: the green snap of a fresh pod, fruit sticky on your hands, the scent of crushed tomato leaves, and the way the air smells when it’s hot and full of bees and pollen and everything’s growing. Strawberries and cream are just the tip of the memory.
 

three tiny joys, glimmers, or moments of soft comfort from today

💻 I did a solo payment run at work today. There was a lot of panic, but I got through it - everything balanced, everything submitted, and no one needed to rescue me.

📚 My gently used book club book arrived and it looks awesome! I love when second-hand books still have personality but are in really good shape.

🎾 Jannik won his Wimbledon quarterfinal against Sunshine - and there was a ridiculously adorable hug between Simone and Darren afterward. Just look at them: 😍

That’s me for today. If you feel like sharing your glimmers, I’d love to read them 💛
Be gentle with yourself, especially if the good things were hard to find.

You know that moment, a few pages into a new book or fanfic, where you realise, oh no (but actually oh yes)—this is going to hit every one of your buttons? I love that. Some tropes just get me, no matter how many times I’ve seen them. I will fall for them again and again, gleefully, like it’s the first time. So today, in no particular order, here are the ones that always work on me.

Fake Dating
Top-tier. Always iconic. I don't care if it's full-on romcom chaos or angsty mutual pining in disguise, if two characters have to pretend to be together for Reasons? I'm in. Especially if they’re bad at pretending. Especially if they’re too good at pretending. Especially if one of them catches feelings first and doesn’t know what to do about it. Especially that moment, you see it coming from a mile away, that moment when, as the reader, you see the date turning real but they haven't yet twigged? It's delicious.

Grumpy x Sunshine
Give me the sour-faced one who doesn’t know how to deal with feelings, and the beaming one who crashes into their life like a golden retriever in human form. Let them banter. Let them slowly learn each other’s edges. Let the sunshine one get quietly intense sometimes, and the grumpy one be soft underneath. Peak comfort.

Forced Proximity
Trapped in a lift? Snowed in at a cabin? On the run and handcuffed together? YES. Stick them in a space they can't leave, turn the tension up to eleven, and just let me watch. Bonus points if they have to share resources, or reluctantly open up. All the better if one of them is injured and needs looking after. (Caretaking! Another micro-trope I fall for every time.)

Only One Bed
Look. It's a classic for a reason. Whether it's awkward bed-sharing full of “we’re definitely not touching” tension or the inevitable snuggling that definitely doesn't mean anything (until it does), I eat it up every single time.

Small Town Romance
There's something about the slower pace, the community vibes, the way people keep running into each other all over town. Maybe one of them is just passing through. Maybe they went to school together and haven’t seen each other in years. Maybe the town itself becomes a character. I love it all. Bonus if there’s a grumpy x sunshine and only one bed in the inn.

And here’s the weird bit: the tropes I love to read aren’t always the ones I love to write. Like, I adore fake dating on the page, but I almost never write it. Same with small town settings - I’ll devour them in books, but when I try to write them, I bounce right off. Meanwhile, I find myself writing intense, emotional dynamics or complicated power shifts, even when I’m not actively looking for those as a reader. Isn’t that odd? Not in a bad way, just... interesting. Like there’s a different part of my brain at work when I write, with its own set of fixations and fascinations.

Anyway. I could probably keep going (mutual pining! found family! hurt/comfort! age gap! power imbalance! kink!), but I’ll stop before this turns into a novella. What about you—what are the tropes you can never resist? And are they the same ones you end up writing?