Dream Dress: Lace Back Warehouse Dress

I spill. I drop things. I can't drink a cup of tea without throwing half of it down myself. I'm a messy thing. I shouldn't be allowed to wear pale colours. And yet, I can't take my eyes off this lace back dress from Warehouse.

Warehouse are brilliant at dresses this shape. I already have three in this style (yet none of mine have a gorgeous grey trim and this needs rectifying). The little cut out, lace Peter Pan collar is such a gorgeous detail. It looks more chic indy designer rather than high street.

Do not wear the dress with matching shoes. You're not auditioning for Desperate Housewives, there's no need for matchy matchy anything. Wear it with bright platforms instead.

Look at the back! It's so damn pretty. I really want there to be more pretty back details in my wardrobe. Usually I'm all for a bit of cleavage, but I really like this look. It's £65 and will probably spend more time at the dry cleaners than it will on me, but I don't think that's going to stop me from buying it.

Baking for Beginners: Chilli Bacon Biscuits

Last weekend, I made Dan Lepard's chilli almond biscuits. "You know what would make these ever better?", said my fella as he hoovered up the still-warm crumbs of the last one. "Bacon."

This weekend, I made chilli bacon biscuits.

These are incredibly easy to make. The method is essentially "mix all the things in a bowl, shape them into biscuits, bake." We've made bacon biscuits before but they've been flavoured with maple and peanut butter and I don't hold with mixing sweet and savoury. I don't hold with bacon either, what with being vegetarian, but I'm a Vegetarian Who's Ok With Being Around Meat (a V-WOW!BAM! for short). These taste flipping awesome, so I'm told.

Chilli bacon biscuits (makes about 30)

You will need:

• 150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 150g grated cheese
• 1 tsp ground chilli
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 rashers of bacon, fried or grilled

Make it!

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2. Chop the butter into small pieces and mix it in a bowl with the cheese, chilli, salt, pepper and paprika. Use a fork, it'll all get clogged up in a whisk. There's no point getting your food processor out, this all mixes together easily.
3. Tip in the flour (no need to sift) and the water, and mix into a soft dough. Chop the cooked bacon into tiny pieces and mix it in too.
4. Spoon the mixture onto a sheet of baking paper and roll it into a cylinder about 4cm thick. Pop it in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up. 
5. When you're ready to bake it, unroll it and cut into slices about 1cm thick. Arrange them on a tray lined with baking paper (reuse the paper you wrapped them up in) and bake for 20-25 minutes until firm around the edges and golden-brown.

Sluttery Travels: Il Treno de Sapori, Italy

It's Monday morning and I'd like to hide from my inbox and run away somewhere very far away.

I really want to be on a flavour train in Italy. The Train of Flavours is like a little tasting tour on wheels.

You pick your tour (Lake Gusto sounds the best, there's also a trip on a boat), they're all priced at €54. Then you hop on board and you're treated to seasonal wine and lunch from that region, while being whizzed around the Italian countryside in a carriage. Oh please, please whizz me away. I can be packed in seconds.

The trains all start in Iseo, a lake between Verona and Milan (nearest airport is Bergamo, flights can be as cheap as £20), and the tasty tours last the whole day. I'm such a fan of train picnics (and train hotels) that I'd love to see them branch out and do hop on and hop off tours all around the country. I can't quite afford The Orient Express, this is definitely the next best thing.

The rain is pouring down outside and all I've got in the fridge is some mouldy cheese. I'm going to be dreaming of Il Trendo de Sapori all day.

In Wonderland With Denise Moloney

We make no secret of our penchant for Alice In Wonderland inspired things. Especially not when they're as lovely as Denise Moloney's 'Wonderland' collection. Take the cup and saucer above. It's based on the Mad Hatter's tea party but look! Flamingoes! There's a plate to match too.

Who wouldn't want to eat tea party goodies from this plate? I want it filled with tiny cakes and pastries.

I'm also rather taken with the Through The Keyhole design. With nary a Lloyd Grossman in sight, there is a little white rabbit instead to guide you through which is infinitely better.

What I love most about this range is that the designs manage to be both subtle and scream Alice. That takes some skill indeed. Skills that won Denise the Best Newcomer award at this year's Saltaire Art Trail. You can buy Denise's work from From The Wilde with the cup and saucer sets costing £40 and the plates £35.

The boy and his poison: The Amante Piquant

I'm a firm believer in alcohol-based incentivisation. Never has this been more true than during the last couple of weeks, where a boozy carrot has been my only salvation from the stick of burning the midnight oil. The question is, if your nightcap has to obliterate the pain of coming home from work at 2am, how do you balance rewarding flavour with a method even an exhausted zombie can shake? Enter the Amante Piquant.

The first appeal of this drink is the base spirit Tequila which, due to my live-in cocktail taster's mortal aversion to the stuff, is strictly black-ops and a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. The second appeal is how the simplicity of the drink belies its incredible flavour. It may be a chop of this and a muddle of that but essentially it's a cinch to make and the green tabasco and lime will happily slap your tastebuds into submission and make you smile like a loon. In fact after one of these I guarantee a 110% improvement on any evening. Which isn't bad for a handful of coriander and a bit of lime.

You'll need:

• 50ml agave tequila
• 25ml lime juice
• 2 slices of cucumber (extra for garnish)
• 2 dashes Green Tabasco Sauce
• 1 squeeze of agave nectar
• 1 sprig of coriander

Make it:

• Muddle the coriander and cucumber in the base of a shaker with the lime, agave and tequila
• Add a handful of ice and a couple of dashes of tabasco
• Shake for 10-15 seconds
• Strain into a coupe glass
• Garnish with a slice of cucumber

Ghost Furniture

Complete one-offs, vintage but not quite falling into the 'country chic' category and a little bit quirky. That's how I like my furniture. It looks like my next house is going to be decorated entirely by Ghost Furniture.

Yes, I really want an bistro 'plat du jour' A-frame in my kitchen. I could scribble on it and tell people what was for tea. Even if it's just 'leftover takeaway' and 'fish finger sandwiches'. This board was rescued from a landfill and done up so beautifully. It's £150 now. I'm coveting this really quite hard.

Gosh this patisserie table is pretty. And it'll be handy when I go to Waitrose on a Sunday and buy ALL OF THE CAKES (get to the cake counter around 5:30pm and loiter until they get the little red stickers out). This will be my cake table*. It's £250.

Gosh, how scrumptious is this chair? It was found in a brocante, having seen better days. The gold detail on the back is gorgeous. It's pretty grand, but I think it'll work in most rooms. Dammit, I'll make it work. It's the priciest piece so far, though - it's £325.

Oooh, hello sexy shelving. My Ghost shopping list is getting pretty long now, but I don't think I could resist these shelves. That gold stripe! They were part of a dresser, but now I'd be tempted to put these in the kitchen.

Ghost Furniture is full of such scrummy pieces starting at £55 over on their Bouf shop. I've just picked all of the expensive stuff because it's Friday and that deserves imaginary spending for a house I don't actually own.

*Cake table is totally a thing.

Shoe Porn: ALDO's Autumn Boots

In a month or so, I'm going to have cold feet. Really cold feet. Every single year, I get caught out by the biting cold that follows autumn. I rush out of the house in cute little ballet flats and I have frostbite by the time I get to the bus stop. So after seeing the gorgeous leather boots that Kat wrote about yesterday (only for tall girls, they'll never fit me), I've decided to get prepared and pick a wintry pair to invest in right now.

These Laraway Boots from ALDO are my current 'I'm totally crushing on you' dream boots. I always tend to go for brown boots rather than black and I think these are the kind of footwear that you'd wear walking through muddy fields, snowy streets and just on your way to the pub. No one has to know that you're wearing stupid Hello Kitty socks underneath.

The best thing about Aldo is that they do half-sizes. I'm not a size 6. I'm a 5 1/2, but I often ruin my little feet in shoes slightly too big for me (oh, hai squished toes, what a bloody joy you are). Kat will be very pleased to discover that they go up to a 9 1/2. These are basically boots of dreamy dreams. They're £120, and I don't want to go down the whole 'but think of the cost per wear yaddayaddayadda' mantra. I've been compromising on cheap leather recently and it's just not cutting it. If I'm going to buy a new pair of boots, I think investing a little more in them is a good idea. My toes deserve it, they're blimmin' freezing today.