Is it time for bed yet?

Baking for Aimee when I can't be bothered to cook for myself!

Wow, what a busy day this is turning out to be. I've only snatched a moment to write a quite blog post while I wait for the oven to heat up so I can shove in a ready meal!

Although I'm looking forward to going to stay with The Best Friend tomorrow, the fact that I'm going to be away from home until Monday means there's quite a lot to get in order, both regarding The Move and work. Not the end of the world but pretty hectic. Of course, this is without me having to do stuff in readiness for my father's birthday tomorrow and going to Aimee's!

Exciting surprise stuff!

Baklava is ready, shortbread batch two didn't come out quite as well as batch one (the base is a bit thin, I think) but that's setting in the fridge as I type. Just got to run around shoving clothes in a bag and wash my hair and I'm sure I'm forgetting something!

The other bit of news from today is that I received a surprise package which turned out to be a copy of The Testament of Marcellus by Marius Gabriel. I am so looking forward to reading the book as it seems to have a really interesting concept, and one that appeals to me, and will, of course, review it here and on Goodreads when I'm done!

Well, oven has heated up... best put dinner on!

Baking for Aimee (also featuring "How many things can go wrong in one day?")

The last period has been a busy one to live through and a dull one to write about. I'm sure you have no problems with guessing why so I simply won't go into all that.

Today's been a funny old day with basically everything going wrong that could go wrong from printers breaking, something going wrong with the signing of my tenancy agreement which led the website to ask me to call the company whose number doesn't work (certainly not outside of the Netherlands anyway), chopped nuts being bought two days ago being out of date by several months... It's certainly been one of those days.

I feel that it's my duty as a friend to
fatten Aimee (and family) up a bit ;-)

That said, I'm really excited at the moment because I'm going to stay with The Best Friend, and her delightful family, for a couple of days later this week. If you read my blog then you'll know when I last saw her, around the time of my AUC interview, a.k.a. too long ago! I'm really hoping that the weather holds and we can do something nice like go doing to the beach or the like. Anyway, I've got to wait until Thursday for that.

I've already been doing things to 'get ready', however as it's a bit of a tradition (it seems!) that I cook so I've been working away on some baked treats. Given free reign by The Best Friend (as long as there's no mint), I've been experimenting a little with a millionaires' shortbread inspired thing, second batch to be made tomorrow, and a kinda baklava thing which is done but needs some little tweaks yet.

So that's that :-D

Instead of keeping what I'm making a secret, I've decided to tease with photos

In the midst of relaxation comes a busy day

After just a couple of days here I feel so much healthier and so much happier. It’s almost as though my body and my mind had forgotten what this state was like and has suddenly reawakened. I’d definitely got used to abnormality.

Anyway, today was the compulsory last minute trip to the shops to get the vegetables that wouldn’t last if they were bought any earlier. My parents somehow managed to convince me that my father’s van wasn’t like normal vans and so I consented to doing the hour long journey in the van, in a storm. Yep, I felt sick the whole way. Why vans make me feel ill when no other mode of transport does will never fail to confuse me!

The shopping wasn’t as hectic as I’d expected. A lot of (sensible) people had, it seems, been put off by the weather. That said, the queue was about an hour and a half long. I’m really not complaining about that in the slightest. It’s amazing how everyone starts to chat in those circumstances and how no-one tries to push in even though the line was snaking around two and a half isles…

I then went to drop Aimee’s gift round even though she’s not contacted me properly in forever and has been messing me about again. Turned out that she’s been having a bit of a tough time so I couldn’t be angry with her even though I wanted to be. In fact, I feel guilty that I couldn’t stay to give the needed hugs. I know that, no matter how annoying she might be, Aimee is always going to be family and I really do miss her. Urgh, soppiness over!

Returning back to the cottage, today was baking day. I don’t know why I made gingerbread again this year because it never goes right. My first ever attempt was tooth breaking. I’ve made a fair few successful batches in the years since but the dough never binds and therefore I kinda smush it together and my gingerbread’s highly unattractive.

Pretty pleased with my quiche though ;-)

Yep, I'm proud of this little quiche!

When I wrote this post, I was without an internet connection. It’s been uploaded onto t’interweb since!

Making Aimee's present, the Harry Potter Cake

This blog post is a scheduled post, written during the last week but set to automatically post while I'm at Aimee's.

____________________________

So, right now I'm visiting The Annoying One in Cardiff, where she's just started university (my little girl's growing up!). Anyway, this visit falls on the Weekend Between Our Birthdays which means it's a party time. As last year we're going to go to a gig but, different to last year, we're also going to have a joint celebration because it was impractical to meet up twice in such quick succession.

So, during the last week I've been having fun making Aimee's birthday presents, a mix CD and a cake. I've not made a birthday cake for a couple of years, although I used to make them all the time, so it's been an interesting time. The easiest part was thinking of a theme, Aimee having just been sorted into Slytherin at her university's Harry Potter society seemed to decide for me! (*)

Day One, making the decoration

Asda might have the best selection of baking products but
their food colouring lids have serious design flaws.

Finished the main decoration. Yes, this was my
second attempt but I'm pretty pleased :-)

Day two, making the cake

Is it cheap to make a cake board out of two pizza
board things glued together and covered in foil?

The cake itself is finished and wrapped in clingfilm, ready to
ice tomorrow! (the pizza in the background had to be cooked for
the sake of the board... see previous image!)

Day three, shoving it all together (and remaking the decoration because things never do go to plan)

Buttercream (green of course) and jam in
position, ready to assemble!

The final thing, albeit the colour looks faded in this photo.

(*) Actually, I toyed with the idea of a TARDIS cake for a while but Aimee judged Harry Potter to be more important than Dr. Who so...