Was pleased to see in the Independent a very decent piece on the England women’s rugby captain, which only occasionally slips into the “gosh, girls are really playing” mode.

Catherine Spencer’s comment about not being recognised without mud in her hair takes me back to my rugby days – well my one rugby season.

I played for the really-not-very-good University of New England (Australia) team, which only made up the numbers with some “friends of players” who’d been talked into it without wanting to be there. Which meant when you got to the wings there were some players really not at all keen to tackle anyone.

I was No 8, a position for which I was way, way too slow, but we had a surplus of second rowers, which was probably where I belonged.

The mud line reminded me of my sporting fame moment when the local television stringer – who’d worked for me when I’d been news editor of the local daily paper – turned up to film a game, and was absolutely delighted to film me at the end of it, with a face as red as a desert sun, and hair that had reached the indescribable stage. (I do hope that tape has been safely confined to history, since I was also so high on adrenaline I was probably incoherent.)

Probably fortunately, I’ve forgotten the score of our biggest thrashing, when we played Newcastle Uni, which actually had Australian team members playing for them. One of them was a centre, who I recall only from the back, chasing her fruitlessly down the field…

File under nostalgia…

I just did mine, and found that I’d been charged for “American Express Card Defence” (one of those services that allow you if your cards are lost or cancel all your cards with one call), despite my having cancelled it in 2008 because the service was so crap.

After 20 minutes waiting without answer on their telephone line, I rang American Express, to learn that “sorry, they have accidentally charged lots of cancelled people – but we will refund your money”.

What would have happened, I wonder, if I hadn’t noticed and hadn’t run up? (This was a charge made on September 30 – so they have had plenty of time to correct it themselves.)

Beware!

Have been having a big autumn garden tidy up and replanting, on my balcony and in the communal pots in our informal community vegetable garden.

Found that a poor, struggling aubergine plant that barely reached 20cm in height had somehow produced a single offspring almost as large as itself (and found cherry tomatoes had insinuated themselves in every crevice and corner).

What I’ve replaced them with is the “mini veggie garden” from this seller, which arrived very greenly wrapped in hay (now forming a “fleece” around the seedlings.

It is quite a selection: broad beans, spinach, red dandelion, a range of winter lettuce, rainbow chard and more … we should be a well-nourished council estate, at least on the nourishment found in leafy greens, if they all flourish!

A gluten-free recipe of my own devising. (No, this isn’t often a food blog, but this really did work out quite nicely.)

Half cup of sugar
Slurp of vanilla essence
Three-quarters of a cup of butter
1 cup of gluten-free bread flour
1 cup of buckwheat flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Three-quarters of a cup of dessicated coconut
2 tablespoons (or so) of milk

1. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla (or cheat and half-melt butter in microwave – I do.)
2. Mix flours, coconut and wet mixture, and add enough milk to form soft dropping consistency
3. Bake around 170 (fan-forced) for about 40 minutes in greased tin.

Would be very nice with creamed cheese icing (like carrot cake), although I’m eating it like a pudding with yoghurt.

I’ve been speaking to climate change campaigner Bill McKibben.

And interviewing Stephen Chan, professor of international relations at SOAS.

And reflecting on the 90th anniversary of the first publication of the Guardian Weekly.

Also – and this all amounts to my holiday stories really, so you don’t have to look unless you really want to, I’ve been learning about the La Tene Iron Age site, visiting the Romanesque cathedral of Tournus and checking out the Cro-Magnon site at Solutre