I feel a bit weary now the adrenalin is wearing off

Unbelievably we seem to have exchanged contracts on our house sale/purchase. There was a moment (or two) on Friday when it really did seem as if the whole thing was going to go belly up as the people we are buying from accepted another offer and told us if we didn't exchange by noon on the Friday the whole deal was off. Our buyer, on the other hand, was utterly convinced this was all a ruse made up by our estate agents and his solicitor and rather than capitulate and send some money (he and his wife had eventually been persuaded to sign contracts) he preferred to shout at people down the phone and hang up. So, the living more dangerously bit comes in when, having exhausted all other options, I tell Steve to phone our buyer. Miraculously (and I do not use that word lightly) the penny drops for dear Mr Patel and he hot foots it up to London yesterday to procure funds and TT'd them to his solicitor. We had, of course, passed the Friday deadline, and were not convinced that our offer on the place in Cholsey was still good. This morning, however, we discovered that money does indeed talk and BINGO! So we are set to complete on 15th May. You can be sure I'll keep you posted.

This is getting ridiculous

For those of you who are unaware, I have been trying to move house. I am afraid that I have let the side down on the 'living more dangerously' front by NOT agreeing to exchange and complete on the same day. Had it just been up to me and not involved possibly stranding my husband and two small children with all their worldly goods in a lorry and needing to unpack it all again having gone precisely nowhere, then perhaps I would have risen to the challenge.

I managed to unpick all the plans from last time we failed to exchange and thus avoid spending any unnecessary money, so my confidence in living life on the edge is growing. Today, we have also told our lovely buyers that we are not going to exchange contracts with a £1 deposit. I suggested a fiver to Steve, but he was having none of it. I am no longer stressed about this situation, I am excited. I love the unknown and all that practice of eating cheese out of turn in a meal and throwing random things into my ice cream maker have prepared me for this day. I am so excited that I was physically sick this week and have been living on an adrenalin rush for at least 10 days. I actually cannot wait to see what happens next.

The latest proposed move date is 15th May, not sure on an exchange date as yet, but it should be some time BEFORE then.

SING: we shall see, we shall see, o I love living dangerously!

OK, so perhaps I am, in fact, beginning to go a teeny tiny bit bonkers, but it seems to be a happy place so I am staying here.

O I think this really is a bit dangerous

Living more dangerously is now becoming part of my everyday life. When it comes to taking the safe option I find myself bothering less and less. I could talk about how I started making a chocolate ice cream that used the words 'live dangerously' in the recipe and in spite of this went and hid underneath my duvet halfway through the proceedings. It still turned out OK. In fact it was way, way more than OK. I could also mention how I just get into the car and blithely follow TomTom Tim's instructions to get to places (those of you who are aware of my legendary sense of direction realise quite how dangerous this is). Furthermore I could write about how the speedometer on the car was broken for well over a week and I just drove at a speed that 'felt about right'.

But no, today I have to tell you about how we have booked packers and movers for Thursday and Friday and we haven't even exchanged contracts on our house sale/purchase. This really is living dangerously. I am, in fact, a little bit stressed about this. I was so abrasive with our estate agent today that I was shaking by the time I came off the phone. I then went to see our buyer and burst into tears with frustration because they just cannot see the urgency of the situation. I'll let you know how this little escapade works out. At what point should I concede that we aren't going to move this week? Before or after everything I possess has been put into boxes?

Big Yellow Hoover

I am sure I am in the throes of a mid-life crisis. Somewhere deep inside, I am willing it all to stop. So much so that I nearly knocked myself out in a bizarre hoovering accident last week. Is there such thing as subconscious self-harming? The fog of concussion is set to last for about 3 weeks.

I have also walked out of a supermarket and abandoned the shopping (unintentionally, I promise you). It was an online tesco with a virtual trolley. I was utterly convinced that I had paid and left the store, but as 9pm approached on Wednesday, it became clear that the groceries were not going to appear. Imagine Steve trying very hard not to lose his temper (he was quite hungry because we had held off eating) alongside SBF trying even harder to stop laughing. I shed a few tears of frustration but thankfully produced a dessert which shall henceforth be referred to as 'The Pavlova That Saved My Marriage' (Recipe available upon request).

So life seems to be becoming more dangerous whether I want it to or not. If it's not becoming a victim of a random act of violence by an inanimate object, I'm teetering on the brink of having 'inability to perform an internet shop' cited in my divorce papers. Is 'living more dangerously' becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy?

What is going on in my freezer

I am reluctant to call this my first culinary disaster of 2009, so let's call it a 'work in progress'. Finding myself with 5 egg whites in the fridge (a result of some gloriously triumphant ice cream making), I thought I would set about whipping them up into a sorbet. Steve reliably informs me that there is a bit of manufacturer's instructions which tells me exactly how to go about the sorbet making process. I have, naturally, misplaced it. Nevertheless, with my new gung-ho attitude to life, I merrily whisked egg whites, sugar and a bit of lemon juice and slung them in the general direction of my ice cream maker. Steve was singularly disinterested in my recipe/concoction, preferring to concentrate on gluing a piece of MDF to our living room (not quite as random as it sounds, just don't ask me to explain in any kind of detail). I, therefore, phoned SBF to see if I could drum up any enthusiasm for my creativity. There was a comment of, 'I thought sorbet was mainly water' and then there was the sound of a cat vomitting and the conversation came to an abrupt end. OK, so the water thing was a bit of a revelation and did explain why the mixture was refusing to freeze (yes, I do have a degree in biochemistry, but that part of my brain was clearly refusing to work). In the end I added about 200ml of water let it churn a bit more and shoved it in the freezer to have a think. I am still thinking. SBF has opened the tub, tasted it (it would appear that living dangerously is catching) and concluded that it is a very cold, sweet, but otherwise tasteless, mousse. I think that tomorrow I shall try to retrieve some of this 'stuff' and blend it with a can or two of blackcurrants. If this doesn't work, I will almost certainly just leave it in the belly of our freezer until I need the tupperware for something else. MARVELLOUS!

Does life get any more risky?

This year's resolution is to 'live more dangerously'. I didn't want to start too big, with throwing myself out of a plane or stealing a car, so I have started very, very small. Last night I had a cheese course before having my dessert. Having pleaded the case for cheese last on New Year's Eve I thought I had to try this. And I have to say it doesn't do it for me. Eating cheese is something that really ought to be done to excess and knowing that there is something else to come kind of dampens my enthusiasm. I have a slight paranoia about being a very slow eater and being able to relax and work my way through an entire cheeseboard and a glass of port or two is one of life's great pleasures. As I usually cook for any meal that requires a cheese course, I don't want to be getting up with an entire stilton inside me to do something complicated like flambe eight crepe suzettes when I can be sat down safe in the knowledge Steve knows how to work our filter coffee machine.

So, I tried it, and didn't like it - if you have a compelling reason for pudding last, I'd love to hear it, just don't expect me to agree.

I shall try something different and dangerous some time soon - watch this space.