Reflections.....

Well, today is the day:) The 40th birthday has arrived and nope, I don't feel any different;)) Not that I expected to, lol! Today though has been lovely. I've managed to talk to all my family and friends, received lots of lovely thoughtful gifts and messages and pretty much gone through today on a bit of high:) My balloon is bobbing around in the living room making me smile when I look up at it and as it's helium, it will be around for a while yet as a happy reminder.

But although I didn't intend to, you do start to take stock and think just what have I been doing in those 40 years? 40 years, blimey! When did it creep up to that?? I'd like to think I'm focusing on enjoying life in the now so I wasn't counting:)) But there do seem to be bits that just flew by as chunks of years!

All this introspection has made me hunt out old photographs. I'm not very good at keeping a photographic record of myself as I don't think I photograph well most days but as I've been looking back I realise I really should have been documenting those younger days - when I looked my best!!! But then, when I'm about 80, I'll probably wish I took some photos of me at 40 so I could see me when I was 'young':)) So everything in perspective. Also, I find it interesting to see my parents and their old photographs so I really should be keeping a record for posterity myself.

Me at 21, (on the right) celebrating in the pub at art school

So, a yearly birthday photo? Mmmm, wait till I wash my hair, and slap some make-up on:) I was also thinking how I wish I had written thoughts down at the time - what was that girl of 21 thinking in that photo? Was she happy? Was she excited, nervous, confident? Funny how  you can look more relaxed when it's someone you feel comfortable with taking the photo. The facial expressions look more genuine and less forced. OR maybe that's just the drink:)) Don't let the orange juice fool you, I'm sure there was vodka involved somewhere!!

I was never one for diaries or journals when I was young - "woke up, got dressed,  had breakfast, ....." same old, same old:) Although I am aware of the irony now I keep a blog which is essentially a journal. Although I do usually stick to creative endeavours in it but that's probably because I don't want to bore you with the trivia of my day - unless its eye candy trivia like lovely cakes or yummy new yarn:)

But because I don't write it here either, then there is no history to these photos, no context to put them in other than the year and names on the back, and my faulty memory. I don't necessarily want to save everything to posterity but maybe a little background detail should be written: where was I, was it a good day, what age was I, what dreams or aspirations did I have? - as by the time I'm 80, I probably won't remember anything except the names of everyone I went to school with when I was 4:))) Sounds pretty much like a personal diary to me. Maybe I've finally grown into diary writing  - as long as I don't have to write it every day - still suck at that as you probably know already:)

So, in the spirit of recording EVENTS, here is some lovely birthday cake eye candy for you to keep you going till I wash my hair and take 40 million photos till I get one I like:)

Thank you everyone for all my lovely birthday wishes and presents - now I'm off to have a piece of cake;))

Cupcakes

Yesterday, a lovely friend came to visit - bearing gifts! A huge cupcake to be precise, lovingly made with her son who decided it just HAD to have blue icing:) Doesn't it just make you want to put the kettle on to have a nice cup of tea and a large chunk of cake? Yes, me too!

And fresh strawberries and raspberries around the cake too - yum! Just this piece alone was very filling and I didn't need much in the way of food for the rest of the day, lol! I didn't realise you could get cupcake moulds this big - such a great idea.  Apparently it's two moulds together so just like a cake only with shaping for the top.  And then all the fun of decorating - if you don't eat all the icing mixture first:)

Looking online at some cupcake photos I found tiers of cupcakes used as wedding cakes - fantastic!! That is brilliant:) For myself, I don't like heavy fruit cakes and I can't really say, "excuse me, can I just have the icing?" So lots of little cupcakes makes a novel and very aesthetically pleasing cake, don't you think?

These are so gorgeous. The precision and delicacy of some of these decorations - lovely! I love the tall one - a christmas cake! Don't think they would last very long, do you? It could be a really clever exercise to keep children busy on the run up to christmas though - decorating and adding cakes to the tree - if they didn't keep disappearing into little tummies:))

Anyone for cake?!

Cake

Over the weekend, I got around to doing some baking. I haven't baked in, oh, such a long time, and I thought  chocolate cake would be nice. But starting with an easy recipe - just in case! When I was young I used to 'help' my mum bake cakes and look through her Be-Ro cook book at all the pictures of the biscuits, cakes and buns inside.

So with my own Be-Ro cookbook to hand, I chose this picture:

Yum, yum, yum! Doesn't it look nice? Swirly chocolate topping and filling - perfect! First though, I had to top up the cupboards with some extra baking things. I thought I'd need lots of melted chocolate but this recipe only uses cocoa and chocolate butter icing. So off I went, weighing and mixing.....

.... till I got a nice smooth cake mixture. Then whap, straight in the oven, wait, wait, wait, then out and cooling while I whipped up the butter icing. Mmmm, was that tasty;-) I did leave enough to cover the cake, honest! The only problem I had was I was too impatient to decorate and tried to spread the icing when it was too runny! Ah, well, no swirly topping for me but at least I managed to cover it better when it had thickened properly:-)

Then we both had a nice slice of well deserved cake - that's the space from 2 slices, not me being greedy - just sayin';-)) Anyway, after the compulsory eating of all the leftover chocolate icing from the bowl, I wasn't needing a lot more sweet stuff! Well, it's a crime to just throw it away, isn't it? I must say though I remember having a much sweeter tooth when I was young - I was struggling:)

Needless to say the cake didn't last long and is all gone now. Maybe just in time to browse through the pages and pick another recipe?

Cake

Random thoughts for you this wednesday:

Today while standing in the queue for the post office, I spied these lovely jumbo bakewell tarts. As it was a very long wait, I had plenty of time to consider whether these should leave with me and decided on the whole, it was a shame to leave them behind.

Favourite snack of the week: bakewell tart!, dried cranberries

Most interesting blog I've read this week: Diary of a French Feline Do read this as it's a very entertaining view of a cat's life! If you've ever had a cat you will empathise with the owners!

Watching: most recently 'The Lake House' with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Lovely, enjoyed it immensely. It's one of those films that stays in your mind and you enjoy thinking about afterwards. Link has some trailers but don't read the synopsis if you don't want spoilers!

Reading: The Moving Finger - Miss Marple omnibus by Agatha Christie

Knitting: Still trying to knit Vivian and the Ishbel beret but they're not getting very far as my head is all foggy from flu so the detailed cable instructions are making my head hurt. I'm sure it is all very easy in everyone else's reality!

Could have done without this week: Realising the mouse in the house hasn't gone and is hiding under the kitchen cabinets where we can't reach it. Cat going demented and trying to scratch a hole where the wood meets the wall. So far she has dislodged some plaster - good going. She's spent all night 'on guard' and is now zonked - out like a light. If I waved some yummy cat treats under her nose or some fresh tuna or chicken, I don't think I would even get a twitch!

Would still like to get done this week: any halfway decent knitting, properly sort out my stash of yarn for new projects, get around to cleaning the bathroom. Probably in that order of importance.