Battenburg and Penguins

It's already bedtime and I don't know where the day has gone. Mind you I spent most of it waddling round like a penguin, unable to bend my knees for fear of bringing on further muscle spasm. Walking up stairs is like doing squats, and if I sit down for any space of time, the agony to get up is unbearable. Everyone has been laughing at me, including my children (rotters) and I was intending on having a lovely muscle soak bath, but got caught up doing this instead. In all seriousness, I am in so much pain (can't even touch my thighs) I might have to buy some Deep Heat tomorrow.

On a lighter note, the children wanted to do card making and bake a cake this afternoon. It is our au pair's birthday tomorrow and birthdays are very exciting to anyone under 5. Johnny announced 'I'll have your presents for you', which I thought was particularly generous of him. Anyhow, I approached the 'Craft Cupboard' alias 'Mess Cupboard' and found some glue. It looked a bit black at the top so I assumed it had gotten paint in it during a previous outing, but on closer inspection realised they were large blobs of mould. How can glue go mouldy? Being me, I totally disregarded the mould, poured out generous amounts of glue into little pots, gave the 3 of them paper to stick on and paper to cut up, and waited for the results. Not bad: Johnny went for the cover-the-entire-paper-and-table-cloth-in-glue-and blue-paper-approach, Leonora the roll-up-pieces-of-pink-tissue-and-draw-rainbows, and Cici: stick In the Night Garden stickers on the paper (bit hit and miss). Nevertheless, our aupair will be pleased.

In the meantime I got out the new cake book my brother and sister-in-law gave me for my birthday, written by Wills and Kate's wedding cake maker (Fiona Cairns). I made the fatal error of asking Leonora which one she fancied making, and she chose Battenburg, because it's pink (5 year old girl logic: if it is pink it will taste nice). Of course I ended up still creating the masterpiece once they were in bed - actually quite a fiddly cake - but it will make a great accompaniment for tea with my in-laws tomorrow afternoon - that's if the children don't get to it first. What about our au pair? Well her favourite is Lemon Drizzle so it looks like the rest of the eggs in the fridge that have been lingering there a while might get used up in the morning.

That's provided I can actually move by then...

Mx