Birthday Busy

The Best of TodayWhat a busy day! First off,  the Feeder Programme  is going great guns. This morning, everyone enjoys the Mixed Berry Yoghurt Cake for their teatime treat and it receives rave reviews. I hoover up the crumbs and experience a very berry taste explosion. It’s berry delicious! David is starting to feel like an extra on that TV programme Man Vs Food trying to consume all the surplus cake at home, so I kindly help him out and share some of Nigella’s Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake with my work buddies too, which proves just as popular. There’s nothing like a nice slice of cake to get you over the mid-way hump in the week.

Once everyone is fed and full, I have to get on with the business of attending to the Birthday Bonanza. Would you believe me, my mum, David and my high school bestie, (also Sam!) all have birthdays within a week of each other. As a result, there’s a whole lot of celebrating going on, and a whole lot of cards, stamps, cake making, reservations and gifts to organise! Now that we’re a whole hemisphere away, I am compelled to virtually celebrate with my mum and Sam, which I think explains why I might over compensate with David!

At lunchtime, I cross the card shop and the post office off my list, and after work, hit the shops to put the finishing flourishes to David’s 40 fabulous gifts. I accomplish my mission with bells and whistles, and reward myself with some retail therapy in the kitchenware department. I’ve been stalking a madeline pan for ages, but this nifty bit of cookware, has proved about as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel! I am so stoked to have finally found one. It is true what they say, all good things come to those who wait!

Madeline Pan

I also find a palette knife too, so now I can sleep at night knowing that David’s birthday cake will be iced to near-perfection! I’m thinking in for a penny, in for a pound, so I throw a mini loaf pan into my basket too, and am mighty pleased with my plethora of purchases!

I get home late and just about have enough energy to wrap up and hide presents,  and then chuck my dinner into the oven. I tweak a  BBC Good Food recipe and produce Hot Dressed Pumpkin, Fennel and Fetta Parcels  and they ain’t half bad! Nothing would give me more pleasure than playing with my thermie or doing a bit of baking but, I’m just about done for the day, and besides, tomorrow is another day! The old me would have gone hell for leather and run myself ragged  trying to do everything, but I’ve learnt that sometimes less is more! A leopard can change it’s spots!