cake and sand

On the weekend my family celebrated a 61st birthday with carrot cake - decorated with lime icing, jaffas and gold dust - and washed down with champagne.

And last weekend we improvised a sandpit for our granddaughter. Digging and running seem to be very important things to do. I remember how I used to love making mud pies when I was about six or seven years old. I used to decorate them with flowers and then sprinkle sand on the top to look like icing sugar. I can't wait to get into that again.

Reading: Smoke gets in your eyes & other lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
Watching: The Sopranos season five

hanami 2014

Today we celebrated hanami - a glass of pink champagne under the cherry trees in the front garden then inside for brunch. We finished up with coffee and Rose pound cake. I found Trine Hahnemann's recipe on The guardian here. Unfortunately I couldn't get the essential rosy ingredients - the rose jelly and pink rose petals - so we had Pound cake with pink icing and a few pink sprinkles instead. And it tasted great.

Reading: That uncertain feeling by Kingsley Amis  
Watching: Project runway season 13

Take five eggs

Today was my brother's birthday and I was charged with making the cake. I used a new favourite recipe, chocolate almond cake, from a New Zealand cookbook - 'A year's worth : Dunsandel Store' by Sam Mannering, Annabel Graham and Rebecca Law. It's an easy recipe that's gluten-free and delicious. What more could you ask for in a cake? I decided to go a bit mad with the decorations getting as many lollies as possible on the top. And sides.

The quilt is progressing. I've now completed 30 out of 40 rows of hand quilting. That's 75% done! This obsessive counting and calculating makes the project sound tedious but I actually enjoy hand stitching. It's quite soothing - sitting and sewing and listening to the radio. Time just flies by. But it's also satisfying to track my progress.

This and this and this

This is the first freesia to bloom in my garden this season. I've been inspecting the garden regularly looking for signs of Spring.

This Crown Lynn side plate is a recent purchase. Somehow it makes anything eaten off it taste just a little bit nicer.

And this is a birthday cake. I cheated a bit with this photo, as I was desperate to create a flower theme for this post. This is the cake I made last year for my mother's birthday. The photos of this year's cake didn't turn out so well. But, curiously, this year's cake was very similar to last years. I think I'm in cake rut.

Photo a day for a week: Day 7

This birthday cake (for my mother - not a five year old as the candles suggest) is the final photo of my week of photos. Good to end with a celebration. I don't know how people have managed a photo a day for a year or more!