Cats and Cakes

This post was inspired by Helen's memories of Summer 2011 blogpost. Helen's is mostly to do with cake. When I thought about doing a similar thing I realised that food (not so much cake) was a big part of my summer but so were cats. They punctuated my summer. They aren't all here and some pictures (Peanut, I'm looking at you) don't present their best side.

1. Peanut 'helping' sort photographs.
2. I thought I wouldn't get any tomatoes from the greenhouse before I left. I was part of the watering the yard and greenhouse team but there were no ripe toms until THE DAY I LEFT and then I ate all of them.
3. Chickpea or Noodles in Manchester: no idea which one it is.
4. Beetroot, potato salad and green salad with cucumber: all from my Dad's garden/greenhouse. YUM.
5. Custard looks bad tempered here. He's not; he's divine and I love him because he will always come to me for some cat loving. He was actually poorly and taken off to the vets a few days later.
6. Zen or Sephy. No idea which cat is which.
7. It might have been the only cake I had a picture of but it was THE best cake I've ever eaten.
8. Zen and Sephy.
9. HP, 17 years young. This picture was taken in March this year. Two or three weeks after we got back to Bangkok we got the phone call we'd been expecting. RIP HP. He was a proper gentleman cat.
10. Lentil, red pepper and feta salad and whatever else I might have in the fridge. In honour of HK.
11. HK's cat. No idea which one but it came to comfort me when I was a party pooper and in bed with a migraine.
12. Back in Bangkok and I  made tzatziki in honour of my sister and felafels in honour of Leon.

What have I been doing?

We've been celebrating birthdays while I've been in the UK.

The first one was my Dad's 81st birthday. Unfortunately the birthday cake wasn't wheat free so I could only smell it. The novelty candle came from a pound shop and was long past the sell by date so we were a bit worried about whether it would work. We had a shaky moment when we lit the fuse and it looked as though it might burst into flames, the 'flower' opened up as promised and we didn't need to call the fire brigade. (Damn.)

The second birthday was lovely Leigh's although we hadn't so much respect for her: she was less than half my Dad's age so we made her wear a silly shirt; it said Official-Leigh 40.

To make up for our rudeness, we bought her 40 presents to open.

And Leigh's cake... well now, that was wheat free so I had, uhm, several pieces of that.

More cupcakes

Oh dear. A whole week? I am sorry for disappearing like that again. I’ve been off catching trains - MOST EFFICIENTLY - to Manchester, which is exactly where I wanted to go...

In Chorlton we enjoyed more cupcakery delights. We went to the Sweet Tooth Cupcakery which I highly recommend. Daughter and M had a Kylie cupcake; L and I had a gluten free chocolate cupcake with loads of icing, sprinkled with edible red glitter and a red covered chocolate heart: name unknown. Other cupcakes are known as Dita Von Teese, Johnny Cash, Barbara Cartland…

The café is in the most unassuming (shabby) building but inside is tiny, pretty and camp. Cakes are displayed in a haberdashery cabinet: glass fronted for the customer to see in and staggered/raked drawers to show the contents of each drawer. See this blog for a review and ace pictures. I’m not sure why I didn’t take photos; it might have something to do with the delicious and decadent cup cake in front of me which was begging to be consumed. I fell instantly in love with the whole tea ceremony thing and am considering going off to buy a teapot.

I might never make tea in a mug again; so there.

Rrrghhh

See here and here for the Suvarnabhumi (Bangkok airport) reference. All my domestic worries fade in to insignificance by comparison.

I don't bake...

Bookworm costume

... but I do make costumes. The children know that they can ask to be anything and I will huff and puff and grumble about time and then usually I will do it. But, if I can't, my Mum or my Dad can and will. That is one reason why my parents are so fantastic.

This is Son as 'Bookworm' for World Book Day 2004.

That year, I rather surpassed myself. Both Son and Daughter looked spectacular, (Daughter tomorrow) and another mother passed me in the playground, and said: 'You've got too much time on your hands...'

I was devastated; I could've cried. She was a solicitor - I am impressed because she had a real, grown up career and she baked her daughter's birthday cakes, while I didn't have a job, I just went to art college. I could make costumes but not cakes and so I bought mine from Tesco or M&S. I reckoned we were pretty even on the making front but she'd reached the finished line on careers before I'd even heard the starter pistol.

Anyway, sorry for the 'me me me, aren't I clever' post but I'm writing you know, and can't think of anything else to post.

Cake and fighting

I just wanted to come and say a very big thank you for all the birthday wishes I got from you all. I had a lovely day and it was enhanced by 21st century communications 'writing on my wall' and 'blog comments.'

This is my birthday cake as made by Daughter yesterday. We're holed up in the apartment for the start of the holiday, and with nothing to decorate the cake with, she used jam! I love it.

Fighting broke out on my birthday on the Thai/Cambodian border over a land dispute. We were going to Cambodia next week - I am beginning to wonder at our travel plans being jinxed - but we've decided not to go. We've changed our plans to stay safe. We'll go to the beach, my three can scuba dive and I can write.

My writing is going well. I sent my first 10,000 words to my mentor yesterday along with a 'sort of synopsis' which was the first time I had managed to cobble together on paper what the plan was. I am really excited about getting some feedback.

Ferrero Rocher, anyone?

I was in Britain for a couple of hours this morning! Oh okay, I’ve been at The Residence of the British Embassy for ‘coffee morning’ at the invitation of the Ambassador’s wife – oooh eeerr, hark at me: proper expat wife, eh?

I donned a smart frock, scrubbed the ink stains off my fingers and made my way to Ploenchit for 10am… along with around 70 others from the British Women’s Group. This was almost us.

We drank earl grey tea, and there were scones, brownies, lemon cake, chocolate cake and more.

The Ambassador talked to us about what was going on in Thailand at the moment and then his wife, who is the Honorary President of the BWG told us about the Residence and the changes to it over the years. She shared funny anecdotes about Ambassadors past.

It was all in all a lovely morning and I dare say will feature in a book at some point.

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Happy Anniversary B

Cast your mind back to 31 August 1991 – if you were a minor then, kindly keep quiet about it - this was the date Husband and I got married. We had a lovely wedding which I don’t doubt looked incredibly expensive but it involved many, many talented and generous friends.

Lovely Alan let my Dad, Husband-to-be and I loose, the morning before the wedding, in a hop field with a pair of secateurs. We took home several bines which were used as decoration in the marquee and in the house. They were used alongside Sally (from over the road)’s skills as a trainee florist; her husband Peter collected vintage cars and offered with a friend to drive the bridal parties to and from the church in a variety of different cars …

My Mum’s friend Brenda made cakes. How innocent and hobbyish that sounds, but really she made incredible, bloody marvellous cakes that would have cost hundreds of pounds to buy from a specialist company. Ours was five hexagons (which was representative of chemistry symbols as this was what Husband did) and was decorated with handmade sugar tiger lilies, gypsophila and ivy. Here’s quite a crappy picture of the cake (remember, photography wasn’t so good in those days):



Anyway, post wedding, my Mum – ever wishful – put aside the top tier for the first grandchild.

Fast forward three years to 1994 – we need the first tier of the wedding cake to eat at Son’s christening. Where is it? Uhm, it’s safe … somewhere … but so safe, no-one is quite sure where it is. No matter, Brenda offers to make us another cake. The cake is a single cake decorated with handmade sugar acorns, blackberries, brambles and autumnal leaves. This time, photography has moved on a bit:



Now, fast forward again – seventeen years from the wedding date - to the summer of 2008, big strapping Son and less strapping Daughter are staying with their grandparents in Kent, the very same house in which their Mum and Dad celebrated their wedding. About 5am in the morning the household is woken by an alarm; the power has gone out. My Dad diagnoses that the chest freezer in the pantry in the basement is responsible and in the subsequent hours and days a mass excavation of the chest freezer and the storage around it, follows.

And, guess what is found? Yup, the top tier, some fourteen years too late, of our wedding cake. This is when I arrive in the UK. My mother is delighted to have found the cake and wants to invite Brenda – who she has sort of lost touch with – for tea. Can you imagine, my sister and I whisper, how horrible it will be?

My mother is persuaded that the risk is too great so when Husband arrives in the UK, there is a presentation of our cake, and we are asked to cut it. I push the knife hard into the icing, through the marzipan and into the cake at a most amateur angle and big gust of brandy engulfs me. The cake looks marvellous, it smells out of this world and it tastes incredible.