Today is Aunty M's birthday and this is her cake. It's a basic Victoria chocolate sponge with a ganache frosting, topped off with sugar flowers and a sprinkling of glitter.
Aunty is my (late) mother's sister, with a twenty year gap (and seven other siblings) between them. She's the unmarried one, the one who remained at home with my gran, the one who taught me to knit and embroider, the one who always made the picnics on family day trips, the one who always bought unusual birthday and Christmas presents, the one who worked in my parents' shop two nights every week to give them some free time, the one who took me to "the pictures" on Friday nights, the one I stayed with after my gran died, the one I was, and still am, very close to.
Aunty was an extremely skilful dressmaker (she did this for a living for many years) and made the most beautiful clothes without patterns. This came in very handy when I was in my teens and all of the latest fashions were only available in London and the other big cities. We'd spot an outfit on television or I'd show her what I wanted in a magazine (usually Petticoat), I'd then choose the fabric and she'd produce it very quickly. She made me skirts, dresses, jackets, coats (one being a spectacular long velvet number). I was often asked where I'd bought whatever it was I was wearing.
She still has her cabinet style sewing machine, which her parents and brothers and sisters clubbed together to buy for her 21st birthday, which was always stuffed full of the most gorgeous fabrics, buttons, zips and reels of cotton, and on which she created those fab outfits. Sadly, it hasn't been used for years and is now just a piece of furniture used to display family photographs.
Aunty is now the one I share memories of my original family and childhood with and we often indulge in those "Do you remember.....?" conversations when I visit each week. Here's to lots more reminiscing, birthdays and cake.