The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.

[bunn]

I was 42 this week. This is apparently the cut-off date for youth, as my mother gave me one of those magnetic arthritis bracelets*, and my optician expressed amazement that I did not require reading glasses. My mother in law, however, gave me a very welcome fifty quid to spend on clothes, and I am tempted to spend some of it ordering a t-shirt with the slogan 'Still Got All Me Own Teeth You Know!' on the front. :-D

We took a day off and went to the beach - and for a change, it was brilliant sunshine all day. I would have taken photos, only having remembered camera, spare batteries, and a whole bag of lenses, I forgot the camera card. So you will just have to imagine Chloe paddling joyfully in rockpools, Az stealing an unguarded chip at the beach cafe, Amber being a *very* good dog and Brythen bouncing pretty much non-stop, and making friends with every person and dog on the beach. Also my seafood salad at the beach cafe, which came with THREE sorts of prawns, and crab, and was delicious. Az, at 14, finally seems to have got over his terror of cafes! Another fear conquered, well done Az!

We didn't make a cake, but Pp bought me some cake pops (made by his hairdresser as a charity fundraiser, I think). Cake pops seem to be a strange phenomenon. They are like tiny cakes on sticks. They are quite pretty, but what an odd idea!

Speaking of cake, I am determined at some point to have a go at this rainbow cake flavoured with natural ingredients. I love the look of rainbow cake but the idea that all the colours are just dyes is a bit offputting, I think. Though I'm a little dubious about whether beetroot will really work as a dye. Every time I've tried making cake with beetroot it's gone either brown or orange. :-/

*to be fair, it is a very pretty bracelet, all anglo-saxon swirly birds. I am wearing it right now. You never know when arthritis might be lurking! If it leaps on me (I imagine it as a sort of long-legged shaggy sloth thing), I shall parry it dramatically with the Power of Magnets.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

A belated happy birthday! (and I enjoyed re-reading your piece in Amon Hen).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

Belated Happy Birthday!

Cake pops are weird, aren't they? But so popular -- maybe it's because they're small and we're all supposed to be terrified of food these days.

And I feel exactly the same about the rainbow cake. If the colours were flavourings, it would be fantastic... But then the tastes might not go together.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I feel that beetroot, carrot, blueberry & blackberry juice should all work OK together. I have to wonder about the spinach though!

[seascribe.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! Sounds like a good one! Cake pops sound like an excellent alternative to proper popsicles, much less melty and messy.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I am baffled by the need for the cake pops to be on sticks. Maybe it's a Terry Pratchett thing - all food is better 'onna stick'. :-D

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of cake pops until a few days ago, when I was flicking through a new children's baking book I'd bought at work. Since then, I've come across them in different contexts every single day. I'm not sure if this means that cake pops have very very recently passed the tipping point into ubiquity, or if I've been walking through life with blinkered eyes, unaware of all the many hordes of cake pops that have been dogging my footsteps, and have just now had the scales removed from my eyes and learnt how to see them.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of them at all before this post, but fully expect to encounter them all over the place from now on.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Likewise...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think I first encountered them because a couple of facebook acquaintances are cake-baking & decorating enthusiasts.

It seems very CMOT Dibbler : Cake! Onna Stick!

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I think Lakeland will even sell you a whole machine just to make cake pops, which seems especially ridiculous. (I first came across them a year or two back, on someone's blog, when they seemed cute and interesting, but I feel the novelty has palled rather by now.)

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! I always find cake pops rather disappointing, because a) not enough cake and b) usually very bland cake.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

These were chocolate cake, so they did have a flavour, although they were perhaps a tad on the dry side if I'm being really fussy... I guess that's because they are such TINY WEE little cakes.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the nature of tiny wee cakes lends itself to dryness...but I am a cake snob and would rather have no cake than boring cake.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Happy belated birthday! Glad you were able to have a pleasant excursion.

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

Very happy, if slightly belated, birthday wishes!

Get the t-shirt!

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Having already spent several months being 42, I have been rather disappointed that the meaning of life has not thus far been revealed to me ;-( Belated birthday wishes to you!