We started moving this weekend. Our flat is looking, feeling and sounding very empty. All that we really have left is our furniture, bedding and kitchen stuff. Plus a few clothes and toys. Next weekend we move for good. I can't wait. I love our new house. I love our new courtyard. The photo above is just of a windowsill in the courtyard. I liked the colours of the bench, the shutter and the plant together.
This photo is for my dear friend. (Hello dear friend!). Do you remember these Peruvian legwarmers you gave me all those years ago, even before M was born? Well they have served me well and never more so than now. I wear them a few times a week and have the toastiest ankles in town.Ca y est. On a commencé à déménager. Il ne reste plus que les gros meubles et l'essentiel du quotidien dans l'ancien appart. Dans une semaine on sera dans notre nouvelle maison. J'ai hâte. Je l'aime tellement (aaahh)! J'aimais bien les couleurs dans la cour sur la première photo. Et la deuxième photo est de mes guêtres (?). On m'en a fait cadeau il y a neuf ans et je m'en sers toujours.
We have been trying so hard to make everything come together for us to be able to close the deal on the house for Friday 13th. A nice date for three good reasons. But today we learnt that in spite of our efforts and those of our amazing bank managers (never thought I would feel that) the other bank (our friend's) hasn't come through. What a disappointment. I feel very sad about that and stressed now about finding another date that suits everyone. Don't worry though, the bottom line hasn't changed and we will be probably still be moving on the same date (next weekend argh) but lets just say the final cherry on the cake er fell off!!!
So I have backache and feel tense, can't sleep and I can't quite see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But I can see the end of the rainbow. (Is that too contrived! Ha ha.) Amazing view taken from my bedroom window this afternoon.
Hum ho. The goodbye party was a success. Decorating biscuits is not as easy as it looks but the girls did a great job.
Even little man joined in (but I am trying not to think about how high his blood-sugar levels must have been yesterday - turns out he LOVES icing).
So tomorrow my daughter is having a little party to say goodbye (or au revoir really) to her friends. She absolutely wanted: one chocolate cake, one vanilla cake, some cutout biscuits and some other bits and buyable-bobs. So today. I have been slaving away and have made some chocolate fairy cakes (vegan), a "vanilla" cake and some cutout biscuits, mainly butterflies.
It's sweet because she actually doesn't like any of that stuff to eat ("Yes I do Mummy they are really very delicious, I'm just not hungry" - nope she can't even finish a tiny heart buscuit) but knows that a proper party requires them (cf. Milly-Molly-Mandy, My Naughty Little Sister, etc.).
The plan was for me to ice these delectables tonight. Ho hum. I don't much feel like icing any more. We'll see. But I did want to say that I of course had my Mum on the phone twice today with questions first about cake-tin size and secondly about what to do if the toothpick comes out clean but the cake is still singing (put it back in for five minutes). When I was little, Mum always listened to cakes and bread coming out of the oven to see if they were singing. And so that is what I do too.
Earlier on I was trying to cream together sugar and butter for both the biscuits and the cake and both times my arm got very tired incredibly quickly and I had to have lots of breaks but I could remember my Mum creaming away just as fast, tirelessly, no pauses even. I asked her on the phone how she did it and the answer was that her Mum, my gran, used to pass a bowl of ingredients to my unsuspecting eleven year old future mother and say "cream this will you" or whatever. I must start doing that to my daughter soon so that I never have to buy a Kenwood and so that she doesn't either!!!!
And then, while I was quite unsuspectingly de-panning my cake, I carefully peeled the lining paper off the bottom and was hit with a wave of nostalgia. How many times had I watched my Mum peel off the bottom lining of a cake? The smell, the moistness of the paper, its wrinkleyness, the texture of the crumbs left on, the squidgey triangle made by folding up the circle to put in the bin. OK I pass for a fool but... next time I'll let my daughter peel off the lining.
This is our local lake, the one we go to to feed the ducks. This Sunday it was half iced-oved. The first time I had seen it like that. The icing on the lake.
We started moving this weekend. Our flat is looking, feeling and sounding very empty. All that we really have left is our furniture, bedding and kitchen stuff. Plus a few clothes and toys. Next weekend we move for good. I can't wait. I love our new house. I love our new courtyard. The photo above is just of a windowsill in the courtyard. I liked the colours of the bench, the shutter and the plant together.
This photo is for my dear friend. (Hello dear friend!). Do you remember these Peruvian legwarmers you gave me all those years ago, even before M was born? Well they have served me well and never more so than now. I wear them a few times a week and have the toastiest ankles in town.
