Angels and other things

Everyone should have angels on their airers. (I don't know what they are called in the States. Metal contraptions you air, or dry clothes on) Here are some of the ones I have made from wood. The tags in a previous post are also wood. They are currently hanging among the washing on the airer because I am making more things. I just don't know when to stop, and the kitchen is still more like a workshop that food central.

The babes stopped by with Jackie after Christmas shopping. J walked in the door moaning that she needed coffee asap. I think the twins were a little too enthusiastic about the shopping part!. Today they got Granny to play in the bay window behind the curtain. This is their castle, I am informed. I took some photos of the shadows, and they thought they were wonderful. Digital cameras are perfect, aren't they.

Momteacherfriend has had an unfortunate encounter with a pressure cooker, and I told her about my one with a liquidiser, failure to put the lid on properly, butternut soup, and the need to repaint the ceiling, and also mentioned the cake I tossed at the wall at midnight once. She wants the story. Ah well, here goes!

When my kids were small, their birthday cakes were works of art. They have had castles, care bears, strawberry shortcake, houses, ships, you name it. One year, Andrew wanted a plane. With wings that stood up. As in not flat on the plate. Of course, I said not a problem. I was a fool. We have never used the fondant stuff they use here in the UK, but proper butter icing to decorate cakes. Fondant might have been easier. I tried everything to get them to be "off the ground"... even tooth picks. Nothing worked, and I did not want the child to realise that his mother could possibly be fallible. I had an image to maintain. I tried underpinning, angles. Nothing worked, and after hours of attempts, I lost it and hurled it at the kitchen wall. At midnight. And it slid ever so gracefully down behind the enormous chest freezer . Which I had absolutely no way of moving. I did what every self respecting mother would do. I phoned my best friend. At 12.30am. The best was that she answered the phone, I told her I had tossed the cake at the wall, and like the gem she is she said...." I know just how you feel". Not "you what? " or "you idiot". So at 1 in the morning, I was busy baking another cake. He had a football field instead. I told him it was a surprise, and only little babies had planes, and he was so grown up now etc etc etc. He bought it. And the cake behind the freezer?????? It had to wait a few weeks till Geoff got home from sea to move the freezer. I will not describe what it looked like by then. Lab experiments could have been conducted on it.

This is the great thing about blogs. I read someone's experience of the day and it triggers memories of things I had forgotten. Disasters. I have had quite a few of those. Cakes. Lots of those too! Like when my friend next door baked a cake for her dad as a surprise, and came racing round in tears to tell my Mum that something had gone wrong. We were about 8 I think. We charged round to see, and the child had put in 3 TABLESPOONS of baking powder instead of teaspoons and it exploded in the oven. Chocolate cake everywhere. Mum had to chisel the stuff off everything. I still tease my friend about it today. Right. Enough now. This could go on all night.