The days have just been flying past so I can't really call this 'Five best things I tried this week' because it's been more than a month since I blogged!

WATCHING A RADIO SHOW

Yes, I know radio is the medium of sound. To be precise, I was watching a radio show being recorded. It was Radio 4's Just a Minute, which has been hosted by Nicholas Parsons for 48 years! If you've never heard this gameshow, the point is to talk on a subject for one minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition - much harder than it sounds! First, the producer, Tilusha Ghelani, explained that two shows would be recorded, and then introduced Nicholas. He introduced the participants: Paul Merton, Alun Cochrane, Josie Lawrence and Tony Hawkes, and engaged in light-hearted banter with the audience. And the recording started quickly, with topics including cathedral citiies (appropriate as we were in Canterbury), the garden of England. As always, the humour wasn't necessarily in what the guests said about the topic, but their verbal squirming as they tried to say something - anything! - without deviating, hesitating or repeating themselves. Never heard it? Listen to clips of 'Just a Minute' here. Find out more about getting tickets to all BBC shows here.

DISCOVERING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RAISINS AND CURRANTS

I'd never consciously considered it, just thought: currants...gritty...yuk...raisins and sultanas...chewy...yum. However, all is now made clear to me thanks to a new book on around the UK via its regional baking: 'A Slice of Britain: around the country by cake', by Caroline Taggart (AA Publishing, £14.99). It may seem obvious but raisins are made from seedless grapes, and currants are made from seeded grapes!

LEARNING A FEW WORDS OF FINNISH

Wherever I go, I always make a point of learning a few words and phrases. It seems only polite, and in my experience local people appreciate your efforts, even if you both end up laughing. Next week I'm off to the north of Finland, so I've been committing a few words of Finnish to memory. Finnish has little in common with other European languages. For example, hello is moi ('moy'), yes is kyllä ('coolla'), and the all-important thank you is kiitos ('keytoss'). The only Finnish word to be adopted by the English language is sauna!

PICK UP AND KNIT

I've been knitting a jumper for myself for a couple of months. Before Christmas I went wrong, very wrong, and I've just gone back to it this week. I managed to get the knitting on the needle the right way round (there's no obvious RS and WS with this yarn), and off I went. And the next step was 'pick up and knit' (PUK) to create a collar. I was delighted to discover that it's very simple: just insert the needle a little way in from the edge, loop the yarn, pull through and there's your stitch. Now it's just a question of more PUK to knit a ribbed border for the armholes and it's done! Apart, that is, from mending a few dropped-stitch holes and weaving in far-too-numerous loose ends.

FLAT WHITE

There was so much hype when the flat white hit coffee shops in the UK a few years ago that it made me want to avoid it. So much fuss over such a simple thing, a cup of coffee, seemed unnecessary. But this week I decided to give it a go, and it was pretty good. It's like a latte, but with less milk, so you get the milkiness but it doesn't dominate
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What have you tried this month?