What a tret!*

Another strange night of sleep. Everytime Huffle moved, one of the springs in the mattress went 'boiiinnngg'. I woke up around 4am and could hear loud deep snoring (possibly Grandad) and although we went to bed freezing (just 4*) it was warm and I had to abondon my fleece, bed socks and extra comforter (a bit like a flat duvet or eiderdown).

This morning, after breakfast, the Stoke fans went to Small's room and watched Stoke v Southampton (2-1) while the Leicester fans sat in the main stand and watched a 0-0 draw.

The big boys went into the garden and moved compost and the little boys played on their tablets. The girls made Small's birthday cake. It took the rest of the day and was a complete disaster. I wanted to make a chocolate cake with an explosion of caramel and chocolate on it. The chocolate cake recipe was a new one I wanted to try and it turned out too rich and dry and flat so I made a Victoria sponge to go in between. That didn't brown and was too flat. I used recipes from British Bake Off books but they use SR Flour and I only had cake and pastry flour. Shame. Still, we put it together with butter icing and then put it in the freezer while Grandma made a caramel. The caramel tasted lovely but was too thick and didn't run down the sides like we envisioned. She mixed it with some caramel sauce we had and it was better but it melted the cake a bit. Then we started adding all the bits and pieces we bought yesterday. Grandma and I ate too many of the sweets whilst adding them so by the time the cake was finished we didn't really want any. The cake inside was awfully dry (though Smallest said he liked it and that's the main thing). After videoing it and photographing it, we tried to light the candles but as it was outside (to get the best ambiance and photographs) we didn't fare too well. We all had a small bit but wanted to save ourselves for our meal out at the Italian later.

Mushroom growing in grass. Compost ready. Raspberry came cut and secured. Bonfire ready. Chalky lost and now found. Veg bed looking nice. Compost bin emptied

Grandad had a bath. Huffle had a shower. Grandma and I played on our tablets and the boys played football. We had a bit of chilling before going out for our dinner.

Small chose our favourite Italian restaurant but when we got there it was really busy and we would have had to wait for forty minutes for table. It was cold outside so we decided to not wait. Instead we drove to the pizza place we found New Years Day. It isn't a place we would normally go for a birthday treat but it has very good food though we did end up eating late.

Back home the kids went to bed, Huffle set up his telescope to look at the Moon and then I wrapped Small's presents. He has requested pancakes for breakfast.

*so many blog titles to chose from today. What a tret was said several times by the Irish commentator on the LCFC match. He was saying Threat. Grandad was trying to guess a song on the radio by DJ Quevo and I said it sounded like a crisp - he said Dorito. Oh yes that famous DJ Dorito. Small gave me a clue to someone singing on the radio and said 'baseball team' and I said 'blue sox' DOH! I said something that Grandma didn't like and she told me to 'shut your Canadian face'.

 

Posted with Blogsy