Photo diary: Project 365, week 9

It's been a funny week, weather-wise, we had sunny days and frosty mornings, with ice in the buckets outside in the garden, as if Nature cannot make up her mind.

Hellebores in the garden survived yet another winter, and I'm always glad to see them.  

Some of the drawings I did this week: this is a picture of an Emperor Tamarin, done with a Uni-Ball Signo white pen on black paper.

Just some pretty spring flowers in town. 

More sketching, while sipping a new hot chocolate (a gift to myself) from Firetree. The prompt of the day for Penandinkchallenge was a Crying dinosaur. At first I though I was going to skip it, but then had an idea of drawing a baby triceratops.

There was a bit of a drama with a parcel from The Cornish Food Box Co that was supposed to arrive on Thursday. My husband was working from home, and I kept checking my emails to see when the courier would arrive. I knew the time slot, and kept reminding Federico to make sure he wouldn't miss the knock at the door. The message arrives that the parcel has been delivered, I saw it about ten minutes after the photo was taken outside the door, but when we opened the door, the box was missing. Drat, what's happened to it?

I was fuming for more than an hour, before I saw that a friend messaged me, saying she had my parcel. Apparently she passed by when the courier arrived, called me on my phone (which was charging, so I missed the call), and since I didn't answer, she took the parcel home with her. 

The courier didn't even bother to knock on the door (who does that?!). If only he did, we would have opened the door, plus he mentioned in the email that the parcel was "left at the porch". I can laugh about it now, but I was seething. 

Later that day my husband offered to take me out to The Fleece for a cocktail, when Sasha was going out with his PAs. Eddie joined us there after school. I'm very predictable when it comes to cocktails, I look at the menu, ponder over different flavours and then order a Peach Bellini, as it's my favourite.

We did't stay long, as we had to be back home before Sasha arrives, and Eddie wasn't feeling great either. When we got home, he went straight to lie down. He was shivering and his temperature's got up.

It was my birthday on Friday. I didn't want to celebrate, as I find birthdays a bit depressing. Who wants to be older and older, though I appreciate the alternative is worse. 

I've never heard of Tunis cake until a few months ago. I believe it was very popular in the UK until the mid-1980s, and some supermarkets sell it seasonally but I've never ever seen one in the shops. When I found out that The Cornish Food Box Company is selling it, I was so curious that I ordered it as my birthday cake.

It's a Madeira cake, topped with a thick later of chocolate, and traditionally decorated with marzipan.

It looks very pretty, though no marzipan's in sight. It is not easy to cut it into slices as the chocolate layer is very very thick, basically it's a slab of chocolate on top of sponge. The sponge is tasty, but I found the overall cake a bit of a disappointment, it's like eating a piece of sponge with a chocolate bar on top. I would have preferred a thinner layer, or just frosting. 

Not a problem for my guys, obviously, as they would eat anything sweet and chocolatey, especially Sasha. He often makes me think of Joey from Friends who comments on Rachel's dreadful trifle, "What's not to like? Custard: good. Jam: good. Meat: gooood!" 

In the evening our friends popped in to wish me a happy birthday. It was really lovely to see them.

These are the cards I got on the big day. The Princess card made me laugh, long gone are the days when anyone called me a princess. 

What I read this week.

Hold Back the Tide by Melinda Sailbsury is a strange combination of a thriller, supernatural horror, ecological disaster fantasy, set against the unspecified historical setting.

Alva lives in a remote cottage with her father, whose job is to keep an eye on the loch and its levels. For many generations Alva's ancestors monitored the levels of the water, which are dramatically falling. 

She believes her father is a murderer, and carefully plans her escape. Before she manages to leave the cottage for good, she encounters a mythical creepy creature from the loch. People begin to disappear, and everything Alva believed in, starts to crumble. 

The pacing is slow, and the horror element, while sinister, is not too scary. I have certainly read more shocking YA horror.

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