First second-hand fruits of the summer

Summer arrived in London in a serious way last week, it was eye-ball wateringly hot, and as we gallivanted around Brighton (we popped down for a day trip to hear about my friend's recent home birth) I felt just that bit more happy with the world.

I was also pretty happy that, although Tim and I have been trying our hardest not to buy stuff till we get in to our house (on that note our estate agents are setting up a meeting between us and the belligerent vendor next week) we have been very un-self controlled and have therefore managed to stash up some sweet summer goods over the last couple of weeks.

These bits and bobs, collected from street corners, car boots and charity shops have already seen air time, with starring roles in our Regent Park picnics.

Here is the essential summer collection:

• Tea cups and china saucers: 10p- 70p from the Ashford carboot (we happened to be camping close by the weekend before last. It was still freezing then but made the camp fires more fun)
• Beautiful strawberry and cherry table cloth: £3:99 from the Dalston Oxfam Shop - well worth a visit if you live within 20 miles!
• Cream metal picnic hamper: Free from outside a shop having been part of their window display- with many thanks to these high street capitalists with their wasteful ways.
• Mint green rusty colander: Key item here for rinsing the caterpillars off those just - scrumped blackberries. 5op from one of the many glorious charity shops on Old Kent Road
• Tea flask: £1:99 also from Old Kent Road charity shops, London's best kept secret, it is totally second hand heaven.

So here's to a cracking summer- hope yours is filled with much tea and cake, scrumping and picnicking.

Keep calm and eat cake

I am pretty lucky with my job (community and activism campaigner with an international development charity) in that it involves as much creativity as I can handle. I get to work with loads of inspirational people- like the Craftivist Collective who are just subversively, cross stitchingly fabulous.

But one of the other top bits of my job is the team I work with who are so crafty and creative, and, as I type, are in the corner of the office baking chocolate cakes in the microwave. Yes, we may have a brand new government, cabinet ministers may be being declared every half an hour, the future of the political landscape shifting every moment, but hey, you know what? Baking is important too.

One mug. One simple cake recipe.* 3 minutes in the mic and then 4 minutes to eat its moist, chocolatey self.

Baking taking place on our special coffee table, a massive round bit of wood left over from the Make Poverty History campaign.

*4 Tablespoons cake flour

4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 Egg 3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil