1. You absolutely don't have to have it all figured out already. In fact, the next few years are going to be far more fun/interesting and better for your growth if you haven't figured it all out. Uh huh.
2. Most things can be fixed with a cup of hot chocolate and a 9hr sleep.
3. It's almost always worth paying more for: hazelnut milk, lingerie, ankle boots, espresso martinis, dark chocolate, hoop earrings, coats, olive oil.
4. It's definitely NOT worth paying more for: candles, trend pieces you can get a dupe of on eBay, fancy mascara, manicures, extra phone data, tiny hipster coffees, vegan protein powder.
5. There's no better feeling in the world than fresh bed sheets.
6. You're not going to meet the love of your life at a bar when he sends champagne to your table, and any guy that does this is most likely actually a massive creep. The love of your life is going to be in a bit more of an unexpected place and probably won't even reveal himself until you've had too much tequila one night. But despite the awkward hangover, that night will also end up being the best decision you've ever made.
7. You don't have to say yes to everyone. And the friends that expect you to do this aren't your real friends.
8. Overnight success does not exist. Success takes YEARS of hard work and drive.
9. You will probably forever long for a meal cooked by your mum.
10. You'll also forever long for another hug from your mum.
11. Eating under 1000 calories a day isn't going to make you happy, and eating soup for dinner every night is not a diet – it's starvation.
12. Eating over 1500 calories a day is not going to make you fat. Nothing is going to make you happier than a guilt-free three-course meal in a nice restaurant every now and then.
13. Keep asking questions, always. You'll learn so much more if you're always asking why and challenging norms.
14. Some of your opinions and views will be wrong. Allow them to be challenged.
15. The first time you cook for your boyfriend in the flat you share together will be the most romantic meal you've ever eaten together.
16. Travel. You've got your whole life to pay your credit card off, but you probably don't have the same chance to see the world.
17. Read. And keep reading. It's the escape from reality you need.
18. NOTHING will make you feel as powerful as having strong back muscles. Being able to lift heavy things and explore your body's potential is a true gift – use it as much as you can.
19. Be kind always. It's always better to be the one who smiled than the one who didn't smile back. 
20. Always carry the following spares in your handbag: a tampon, a pair of socks, a charger, and hand cream.
21. Have one signature dish mastered for the times someone's coming over / you CBA with creative cooking. Looking at you, prawn, cashew and coconut curry...
22. Admit when you're wrong. Apologise too.
23. Great wine, good gin and the occasional glass of champagne are three indulgences you need in your life.
24. Your body will change, sometimes daily. It's okay. Roll with it.
25. People will almost always have an opinion on what you're doing and how you're living. Ignore them and carry on mixing protein powder in your yogurt.
26. You are enough. 

Before it was us, it was me and my me could be defined by a much smaller group of dishes. A small baked sweet potato with a solitary tin of tuna. An individually purchased salmon fillet. A fun-size bar of chocolate here and there, because I’d never trust myself with a big one in the cupboard. A one-cup cafetiére, that only came out on Saturdays and had such little use I could make a packet of ground coffee go for months.

It was the days of always being on a “diet” – if you can even call meagre portions of chicken breast and lettuce leaves that. It was always being hungry. Replacing dinner with wine, because there was nothing to really rush home for anyway. Eating dinner in bed, alone. Labouring over morning pancakes and presenting them carefully to eat by myself, because labouring over food was the best way to fill my endless spare time.

Our first course came at the end of one of these kinds of days. It had been sweet potato fritters to be precise, with some token spinach leaves on the side, consumed on the sofa – alone. And precisely half a chicken breast that day, so I didn’t bloat (obvs). Later I walked to the shop and bought a small bag of grapes, for something to do. Passing hours and saving calories for alcohol.

By night: paella overwhelmed my palette. We ate it side-by-side – anticipation hanging between us. No one else was really touching it, but we loved our food. It was laced with fizzy Moet (we only had a glass each), and the distinctive salty taste of paella-spiced prawns.

The next day when you woke up with me (unexpectedly), I couldn’t get us to the coffee shop quick enough – and that early smell of roasting beans has since become part of us. Over our two and a half years we’ve shared cup after cup. The pre-workout ones, the lazy Sunday morning ones in front of the TV. We lost my one-cup cafetiere pretty quickly – it became a four-cup we’d often down between us in one sitting – and now it’s a coffee machine we own together in a flat we'll soon live in together too.

Later that same day we had our first meal: small plates. We chose two each. Except we’ll never count this as our first meal, because a week later it happened with all the fanfare that brilliant first dates deserve. Sangria and tapas – we chose four each this time. It was just the right amount of awkward with just the right amount of accidental fork nudges, and accidental knee touches. In a word: perfect.

Years have passed and in these years, food has always been at our centre. We’ve shared more M&S Dine in For Two deals than I can count. We’ve sat in bed in a fort built from pizza delivery boxes, the remnants of last night’s stale red wine hanging between us.

We’ve dressed up and hit rooftops, basements and cosy dens in the city. We’ve tasted J. Sheekey, we’ve shared tapas (you choose three, I choose three), we’ve had ostentatiously sized cheeseboards, canapes, juicy steaks, glasses of champagne. We’ve had airport breakfasts and Grecian lunches (souvlaki and salad). 4am prosecco before take-off. Locally caught fish by sunset (with a sunset view). Fresh fruit and bread baskets and cake for breakfast.

But my favourite meals have always been at home. It’s the sea bass you cooked me for our second ever date – it tasted like kindness and I couldn’t even tell you the potatoes were too spicy because the gesture was all I needed to digest that night. It’s the time we bought a chicken on impulse, stuffed it with lemons and I chanced upon the ultimate roast potatoes with chorizo. The time we got the slow cooker out and came home to a house smelling of curry, the turkey breast falling apart in its fragrant juice. It’s the hungover ice cream and warm cookie creations; the bowls of linguine on the balcony in summer; the times I’ve been sad and you’ve appeared with Maltesers.

Pretty soon we’ll eat our best meal yet: the two of us, in a flat we will soon live in together, most likely out of mismatched old bowls we haven’t got around to replacing yet. And it’ll probably be the best thing we’ve ever tasted.

Romance is about more than champagne and cheeseboards. Romance tastes like comfort. It’s the “please cook that herby chicken again tonight”. It’s the surprise chocolates hidden stealthily under the bed. It’s the texts: “shall I pick some Malbec up on the way home”/”Which starter and main are your fave from the Dine In menu tonight?”/”Pizza?”. It’s warm, and juicy – it’s salmon skin that gets burned to the foil, too-spicy potatoes, not quite done meat.

It’s haphazard but comforting and keeps you coming back for more.

It, and you, taste like home.

Cast your mind back to July 2018. England was bloody boiling, it was still coming home (just about), and Brexit was a little more comfortably far off and undecided than it is now.

It was also the month where I ticked a biggie off my bucket list: a trip to Santorini. Courtesy of my bloody incredible boyfriend, who gifted me the flights and hotel as a surprise 25th birthday gift.

Santorini has all the good things that every Greek island has: amazing yogurt, blistering heat, incredible sunsets and all the views. But it's just a little more luxurious than any of the others I've seen. It's the kind of place where you can go out for a Michelin-starred meal, but also ride a donkey with heatstroke up a hill if you fancy too.

Given the island's luxury reputation and costly accommodation, my dreams of a trip there were pretty far off. So when the holiday suddenly became a reality, I did a LOT of Googling to find out how to make the most of the island without bankrupting myself too. Here's what I learned.

Where to stay

What to do

Where to eat

What to wear

Remember that episode of Friends, where Monica decided to move in with Chandler? Her and Rachel (her current flatmate) fought as they divided their possessions up, before eventually breaking down in tears when they began to acknowledge how much they would miss living together.

I don't really know how to start this blog. Until now I've purposefully avoided writing anything about feminism and women's rights – not because I don't believe in them, but because I'm constantly educating myself about the many, complex issues that exist in these spaces and still navigating how I feel about them as a young woman myself.

But much like many other women in the wake of #MeToo and the constant stream of reportage on high profile sexual assault cases... I've had enough.

I'm only 25, and I already have far too many female friends who have been victims of sexual assault. Every single female I know has been subject to some form of sexual harassment over the years – whether she realised it was this or not.

I myself have grown up with this too. In a weird space where it's become embarrassingly normal for men you pass by in the street to comment on your appearance, directly to your face, in a lewd manner. I too have grown up with the cultural conditioning that it's just normal for a group of builders to shout "Nice legs" at you, or a passer-by to tell you exactly which sexual acts he would like to perform on you. Where it's not uncommon for a stranger in a busy bar or club to touch you in a crowd, somewhere you don't want to be touched, and you're too frightened to say anything – mostly because you know it's not going to be taken seriously as "assault" anyway. Where a woman's value is constantly and relentlessly equated to her aesthetics, or the long-standing and outdated perception of female beauty.

Luckily #MeToo has provided a mouthpiece for change – and many of these things are being tackled. I've grown the courage to challenge a man in a pub who makes a remark as I walk past, or to call out any stranger who touches any part of my body in a public space, unprovoked.

But so much has not changed. For the most part, I'm terrified of travelling home alone at night. I've been known to run the 4 minute walk from my tube station to my house. I'm petrified of being raped. I'm scared that one day my effort to talk back to a man's inappropriate comment will result in me being assaulted. I'm scared of maybe bringing future daughters up in this space too – where women for the most part still live in fear. It's 2019 and I can't walk home alone without fear. I can't walk home without constantly checking over my shoulder.

The thing that's worried me even more about this is the reaction some men will still have to this topic. Usually it's "that's awful, but I'm not one of those men. You can't paint everyone with the same brush." And that's not all bad – it's amazing to hear that most men hold respect for women. But I wonder what these men are doing when their friends aren't showing the same respect? How many men can honestly say they'd speak up if one of their mates was bragging about sleeping with a woman who was really drunk? Or would voice their disapproval when they hear another man using disrespectful, sexually-loaded language to describe a woman's appearance? Or would call another man out for making an inappropriate remark to a woman in a bar?

For the record: I do not hate men. Some men are really great men. And I agree to some extent that you can't paint everyone with the same brush. I feel extremely blessed to be in a relationship with a man who holds the utmost respect for women. Who has always made sure I get home safe, while acknowledging how unfair it is that I should even have to worry about this part of my life. Who – had he got a place – would have donated his London Marathon fundraising to an FGM charity (heart emoji!).

But you can't ignore facts – and it's not my fault that the overwhelming majority of rape crimes are men attacking women.

In order to conquer this horrible, terrifying issue, I truly believe men need to start challenging other men. Respect needs to become normalised across the board. Toxic masculinity needs to be erased. Not doing anything about sexism is just as unhelpful as sexism itself. Not being part of the problem is great, but how about channelling that energy into checking yourself and those around you instead? Sexism isn't just the result of peoples' actions, it's the result of their inactions too.

An analogy that might be useful here: Pizza Express. Imagine someone goes to Pizza Express in Liverpool Street, enjoys a plate of carbonara, but then comes down with food poisoning 24hrs later. The first thing they would do is probably call Pizza Express Liverpool Street, report the issue and alert them to a problem with their ingredient supply. They might then tell their friend, who would probably agree with their decision to contact Pizza Express directly. The friend probably would not shout at them, because their local Pizza Express in Wandsworth is fine and they've never had any problems after eating the carbonara. They wouldn't accuse them of painting every Pizza Express with the same brush because they had a bad experience in Pizza Express Liverpool Street. They'd probably acknowledge the fact that there was indeed a problem with the ingredient supply at Pizza Express Liverpool Street, and perhaps even alert Pizza Express Wandsworth of the issue to ensure that it doesn't repeat across the board, at more than one Pizza Express venue.

The same goes for sexism. Spending time defending your own intentions and beliefs is okay, but it's not as useful as doing something about the problem – men and women included. Instead of telling a woman you're not part of the problem, take a moment to check yourself, your actions, your friends' actions, the bravado of your colleagues and other people around you – and see if they're morally aligned with your own beliefs. See if they're respecting women in the same way you do.

Until respect is mutual and boys are brought up knowing categorically that disrespect, lewd comments, sexualised remarks, inappropriate touching etc (the list goes on) are not appropriate ways to behave around women... the problem of sexism will never be erased.