catching up

[pensnest]

I have been remiss for a week, so here is a catchup post. I'll cut for boringness and photos.

Chorus had a singout last Saturday, in a very nice church over in Wells-next-the-Sea. Not a huge audience, but at least there were twice as many of them as there were of us, and they enjoyed themselves. Raised a decent sum for the church roof, too.

My birthday treat from Bun was to learn some cupcake decorating, so she, her friend/tutor J and I spent Sunday afternoon putting icing into moulds and doing some fancy piping. Most satisfactory, plus, cupcakes!



Some of the little shell moulds are amazing, so much detail in them. I was dubious about the mermaids' tails, but in the end I think they were more successful than the unicorn horns.

There was also some chocolate and some orange icing, so the chocolate cupcakes got somewhat different treatment (and my piping improved).



Monday evening, my quartet met one of the chorus's more experienced quartets, we warmed up together, we sang for them and they gave us some critique and advice. Then they sang for us. Very pleasing evening all round.

Tuesday was knitting at Biddy's. Slightly disappointing cake this time, which is unusual, but the chat was good, as always.

Wednesday was my actual birthday (thank you, if you sent me good wishes, I'm sorry I didn't get round to saying proper thanks). Dave the Bees reported that the hive is looking good. I got my presents from Grandpa (devices for cleaning cat hair off things—not quite my idea of a birthday present, but on the other hand, he had observed my life and figured out something that might be useful in it, so kudos to him) and from Beast (dragon shaped ear cuffs, great fun though I have not yet figured out how to make them stay on my ears, and TimTams, yay!). We also went out for lunch, having fortuitously received coupons for a local chain a couple of days earlier.

Sadly, I slept not at all on Wednesday night for no discernible reason, and was zombie-like on Thursday afternoon, though with-it enough to get myself into town during the morning. Specsavers offered to provide me with a new pair of glasses for almost exactly half the price that Boots would have done, so, win. I have decided to be An Old Person, and am having bifocals. My current pair of varifocals has never been satisfactory and I am thoroughly fed up with them. So, old people glasses.

Fluffy brought in a large, live mouse on Thursday morning (luckily for me, I was just leaving!) and hid a dead vole in the wellies cupboard today. Hmph. Sable disappeared on Thursday evening, somewhere Outside, and eventually we sent Princess Fluffykins out to rescue her. Which she did, escorting her in quite calmly not many minutes later. I was too weary to go out singing.

Then on Friday I treated myself to a pedicure, and consequently have golden-orange toenails. I do like a nice pedicure.

*

I've been reading the obit thread on Anthony Bourdain on MetaFilter, with more sadness than I expected to feel. I discovered him through Kitchen Confidential many years ago, and found his writing a delight, though I don't think I've ever seen his tv shows. From comments and links, it seems he was a thoroughly decent person, and a sad loss.

Comments

[jerakeen]

Happy birthday! And OMG those cupcakes look AMAZING!!!

[pensnest]

I was quite proud of them! :-)

[copracat]

Wow. Cool present. They look gorgeous.

[pensnest]

It was a very good idea. I now understand how to wield an icing bag, so I may have to do further experiments on my own.

[copracat]

Oh nooooooo... that would be terrible...

[pensnest]

Such a hardship, indeed. *woe*

[spikedluv]

Happy belated birthday! Those cupcakes are amazing! The mermaid tails are so cool! What a great gift.

I love that Princess Fluffykins brought back Sable with no fuss.

Yay for pedicures! My nails are currently purple. *g*

[pensnest]

The mermaid tails turn out really well - I was a bit dubious when making them, but they looked very cool when encaked.

It was rather sweet! We couldn't see Sable anywhere, so she'd obviously gone further from the house than ever before, and got confused. Fluffy did well!

[rikes]

What a fun and delicious birthday present!

[pensnest]

I shall have to see if there is anything at Camp that needs decorating...

[turlough]

What a fabulous birthday treat! I love the mermaids' tails and the little clams! And the spiky orange & chocolate ones look so yummy.

Good to hear the bees are doing well.

Sounds like Fluffy is developing into quite an accomplished fetcher. I wonder what the next stage will be, bringing you a dog maybe :-)

[pensnest]

I thought the moulded things turned out amazingly well - you can't see the details of the tiny shells, crab etc, but they are really intricate. But most of all, I'm pleased to have got somewhere with the piping of icing, because that ought to be fairly generally useful.

They - well, Fluffy - had brought in another small creature last night, but Julian couldn't manage to get the cats out of the way and then catch it, because by the time he had coralled the cats, the wee beastie had hidden. And if he let the cats flush it out, they got in the way of his rescue attempts.

We found a tiny corpse this morning.

I'm just hoping Princess Fluffykins doesn't get ambitious and go for a squirrel, or one of the crows. I don't think either would go well!

[turlough]

I'm just hoping Princess Fluffykins doesn't get ambitious and go for a squirrel, or one of the crows.

I first read that as "one of the cows" and I'm now imagining her driving a herd of cows through your front door. It's a very entertaining image :-)

[pensnest]

Fortunately, they'd have a job fitting through the cat flap! Otherwise I wouldn't put it past her.

[turps]

Happy belated birthday!

Your cupcakes look great. What an amazing present. I like the idea of dragon ear cuffs, too.

[frausorge]

The cupcakes look awesome! I'm particularly struck by the two top left chocolate ones - what delicate work.