love those cupcakes

Someone......

......and her mister paid a return visit to the walled gardens at nearby Wynyard Hall. The borders have flourished since we were last there a couple of years ago, bursting with colour and buzzing with bees.

 Someone also spotted her first real live medlar tree bearing its distinctive fruits (named dogs' arses in French, so I'm told).

......has been digging into the TBR pile and borrowing from the library.  Every one of these titles was enjoyed and is recommended.  (***Pop back soon for a chance to win your choice of one of these books and others.)

......is still obsessed with all things patisserie (we really do need an appointment system for accessing the kitchen these days).  Recently out of the oven, courtesy of the Boy Who's Always Baking (and after deliveries of copper moulds from France and a lump of beeswax), were Caneles (they were days in the making) and...

a batch of (mistaken by a passing someone else for sausage rolls) brioche based Creme de Parisiennes, topped with sugar pearls.

......celebrated a birthday.  The Baking Boy continued to strut his alchemic stuff and made a wonderfully rich and fudgy vegan chocolate, rose and pistachio cake whilst muttering, 'Vinegar just shouldn't be a cake ingredient'.  Being the birthday girl, I was given a choice of candles.  No brainer.  All of them.

......was treated to a birthday afternoon tea at the coast.  As we stopped en route to the venue to take a snap of Huntcliff, my cousin uttered the words, 'If I was going to commit suicide, I'd definitely do it jumping from there'.

......is convalescing (again). Having had to defend himself once more against the neighbourhood's feline aggressor, poor Buzz ended up needing a partial front paw amputation. But he's recovering well and, hallelujah, the bully cat has moved house. 

......is about to turn 2.  What?

 

Goings on

I went to a friend's retirement presentation (she's relatively young for a retiree, one of the high salaried, well pensioned lucky ones). The venue was in a nearby town.  It seemed a good idea to go by taxi.  The taxi driver called me 'babe'.   A lot.  I declined his offer to wait outside for me.  The presentation went well as my friend took us on a hilarious journey through her career.  There were mountains of chocolate brownies and many faces from the past.  As an ex colleague sitting next to me said, as we played the game of Name The Latest Arrival, it's funny seeing people you'd assumed were dead.

I hopped on a train to London (and hopped on one back, obviously).  I met up with the Gorgeous Girlie and off we trotted to Ottolenghi's for a late breakfast.  The food was good.  The service was abysmal. Someone was making it very obvious he wasn't happy in his work.  We mooched about Spitalfields and crept quietly around Dennis Severs' house, trying not to trip over in the candle-lit gloom. We had afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason.  The pianist did a passable impersonation of the very smiley Russ Conway. 

I made curry.  The Boy made Ferrero Rocher lookie-likies.

The buddleias bloomed briefly in the garden.  The butterflies weren't attracted.  Not one.

We went to Butterfly World.  No buddleias but butterflies aplenty.

I read Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour.  More butterflies.  Lots more.  And climate change.

We celebrated the Boy's birthday with triple chocolate cake (I baked it but couldn't eat it) and dinner at our favourite local restaurant.

We headed to the coast for a food festival.  Along with thousands of others.   We ate chana chaat naans and macarons.   We bumped into old friends.  We quaffed cocktails. The weather was alternately sunny and stormy.  As was the littlest.