Deck the hallls

with pink fluffy fairy lights! With apologies for using the same song again!

Party Preparation Day today, so my poor neglected, mother went out to work two days this week children got to play xbox and watch films all day with occassional fob offs of lickin the bowl or getting some microwave popcorn while I did mammoth amounts of baking. The oven went on at around 10am and didn’t get turned off til we had dinner around 9.30pm.

I made jam tarts, heart and star shaped biscuits, pink cheese scones, lots of mince pies and a fairytale castle birthday cake. The cake has been something of an epic really. Scarlett said she wanted a castle cake so I checked in some books at the library (where I am often to be found nowadays) and got a great idea for covering cardboard tubes in clingfilm then making an icing tube around them and slipping it off to make turrets (and she’s specifically requested turrets) so I’ve had icing and cardboard tubes in various states of drying and hardening on my worktops since Tuesday. I made the actual cake bit this morning, jam and buttercreamed it together and attempted to mix some icing to cover it. Which is where is all becomes a bit Classic Nic Trying To Achieve Something Saga – esque really, but I’m not in the mood (Too drunken!) be bothered with such recounting so suffice to say that had to be put on hold til I got to the supermarket for icing supplies.

Dad came over mid afternoon to mind the children while I went to the dentists for a scale and polish – so I’ll be expecting compliments on the whiteness of my teeth from all those of you seeing me this weekend ;). I popped to Sainsurys afterwards to get more icing sugar and Ady and I arrived back home at the same time so he did the chatting an eating mince pies with Dad while I tried very hard to construct a castle. This is my final effort working on the less is more principle and using more cake decoration than Jane Asher on a frenzied day. Its okay – my perfectionist streak could pick a million holes in it but Tarly’s face lit up, it is after all a castle, it has her requested princess peeking out of the tallest tower and it has her name on it. 🙂

We got Tarly to sleep but Davies was still awake when Kirsty and James arrived. I was in the bath talking to a friend on the phone who is having a life crisis for at least the first half an hour they were here. We had curry and watched music channels while the children very s l o w l y wore themselves out. Everyone else is in bed now and I’m about to head that way myself.