Happy Birthday me!
Oh, and did I mention it’s my birthday? And right royally spoilt I have been too. Hubby got me the most gorgeous Matthew Williamson handbag (cream and beige leather, a hint of metallic, fantastic pink floral interior complete with a little ruched mobile phone pocket (!) and some blingtastic gold dangly bits – it’s a visual really though) and a lovely linen top, and the boys got me some yummy smelling ginger bath salts and some special candles for my bath (‘my present was bigger!’… ‘well mine cost more!’). My Mum bought me a lovely cuddly fleece that I’d had my eye on, plus some well chosen Clarins smellies, then a courier appeared (oh, the joy!) and a big bucketload of Clarins stuff turned up from my Dad too (great minds think alike) cleverly managing to avoid duplicating a single item – impressive. I also got a lovely jumper from my sister-in-law, C, and my brother (who said: ‘oh, is that what I got you?’ when I thanked him, so I’d guess the thought came mostly from C!) and some lovely Molton Brown goodies from my other brother and sister-in-law. I am a lucky, lucky bunny.
As is the tradition in our house (as you’ll remember from the Black Forest Gateaux debacle), the birthday person gets to choose his or her birthday cake, so I set to work on my own chocolate extravaganza. The result was a double layered chocolate sponge (made with Green and Black’s cocoa and extra melted chocolate in the mix), sandwiched with dark chocolate ganache and topped with yet more dark chocolate ganache and finally garnished with a dark chocolate star, frosted with glitter. Inside #2′s card he’d painstakingly written: ‘I know I’ve helped but you’ve done the most and all I’ve got to say is happy birthday to the best Mum in the world’. We’re finishing off with a Chinese takeaway tonight and then a nice bottle of bubbly. Beat that for a birthday!
With love and doggy kisses from Taffy xxx