It seems like there must be a lot of money in listing ‘conspiracy theorist’ as the primary occupation on your resume these days. There’s all the movie and book deals, plus surely the gifts of thanks from crazed fans. With this in mind, I’ve come up with my own conspiracy theory (royalties are accepted in cash). My theory is thus: the boy in the bubble never died. Instead, he moved to Australia, assumed the identity of a blonde girl named Laura and continued living despite the generally murderous intentions of the world.

This photo was actually taken at night. Laura is just so deathly pale that she emanates her own glow.

Anyone who knows our best friend Laura will be inclined to agree with me. She is quite possibly allergic to life. And to make matters worse, she’s too old and too tall to pass for a cute, sickly-looking child that Maury Povich would deliver a truck full of toys to during his Christmas special. Life is hard.

So, when I heard that Laura was off work sick for the week, I immediately thought to myself, ‘which ailment doesn’t she have yet?’. Diabetes, of course. And with that, a care package was created.

A care package of cookies and smut for our perennially ill friend

Containing, from left: espresso brownies and chocolate chip chai shortbread (both recipes from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar), and chocolate/vanilla hypnosis cookies (from the shiny new Vegan Cookie Connoisseur). Not seen: DVD of zombie movies and Norwegian church-burning black metal documentaries.

Chadwiko has an aversion to hot drinks and anything resembling them, so the brownies and shortbread were both recipes I’d wanted to try but hadn’t for fear of a) his irrational rage at me baking a cookie that wasn’t chocolate, and b) subsequently making myself sick by eating them all myself. Sharing was a wise solution. As it was, I ate more chai shortbread leftovers at work yesterday than I should admit to anyone but a therapist.

This baking endeavour was also my christening of The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur. This book is so well-presented with so many delicious-sounding treats that I didn’t know what to try first. So I went with my usual method, and choose the recipe with the most pictures. I regret nothing, because these were a lot of fun to make and adorable to boot. And given that I successfully tackled probably one of the most fiddly recipes in the book with no problems, this definitely passes the ease of use test. This one is going in my suitcase when I go home later this month, to help with the Christmas catering.

Which gives Laura around three weeks to recover from this sugar coma and prepare for the next onslaught. She’d best get hypoglycemic in anticipation.