Vanessa’s Blog

is this christening cake, which was for two little girls from dad’s church in Holburn.

Bottom tier was an 8″ fruit cake with a simple fondant icing covering, and the top tier was a 6″ chocolate cake covered with a fondant/cocoform combination.

Here’s my most recent cake, a design for a Polish / Indian wedding.

V. x.

(PS Actually posted by Paul to try and get V posting again!)

How cool are these?!!!

That said, I think I prefer the little trolley case that Lucie already has. At least, with that, she has to pull along all her toys herself!

I’m sure Paul has high hopes for Lucie to learn all his computer-geeky stuff and invent the next YouTube or something. However, my slant suggests that Lucie could take up sugarcraft because, if she starts now, then I can guarantee that she’ll be a lot better than me by the time she’s my age.

Actually, I’m sure that it won’t be long before she tells us both that she’s adaquately capable of finding her own way in the world but, for now, she is mainly dependent on my influences… can you tell?!

It is 22:59 by my reckoning, and our groceries are booked in the 21:00-23:00 slot tonight (it was the only one left when I booked it yesterday)

So, I now think that you should get your shopping free if they’re late! Actually, I’m being a bit unfair because they are usually faultless and, if/when the bod comes tonight, they’ll take all our old carrier bags for recycling and, tonight, they’ll even be getting our Christmas cards too!

Pity they can’t take all our recycling with them. Paul didn’t put the bin out today. OK - neither of us put the bin out (although I was out, in fairness) so our full green bin must now wait a fortnight before they come round again. D’oh!

This evening, Paul found out that you can design your own luggage labels on the KLM website.

Now, here is where the difference between us is most apparent…

For mine, I uploaded a lovely picture of Paul holding Lucie - which was taken in the south of France last summer. Paul, on the other hand, uses the opportunity to increase his number of MoDaCo-branded possessions! (Gees - to think that I try and go on holiday to get away from MoDaCo, only to find the logo staring straight back at me from the baggage conveyor the moment that we get off the plane).

Anyways, it is still very cool to be able to get a custom luggage tag printed and delivered for free. Check out http://cluster.icecards.com/klm2006uk/first.aspx if you’re interested.

I get a ‘Turkey’ (three strikes in a row) in the last frame of Wii Bowling and then Paul goes and does the same on his next go. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?!

Edit: Talking of Wii Bowling, my highest score is now 211. Anyone got higher yet?

Today, we decided to go in to Norwich for a chinese buffet lunch. Since it was an all-you-can-eat kind of affair, I had bought into the fact that it was going to be cheap and cheerful and, therefore, busy.

In actual fact, it was horrendously busy, the tables were in rows and crammed together like a school canteen, it wasn’t cheerful and, to top it all off, they didn’t have prawn crackers (Lucie’s favourite!). A surprising scenario - not only because Chinese Restaurants and prawn crackers go together like fish and chips, but also because filling all the young kids up with cheapo prawn crackers so they are too full to eat the more expensive-to-prepare main dishes seems like too good a business opportunity to miss, if you ask my opinion.

Hmm, perhaps I spent too many hours as a child playing business related games like Theme Park (”consider adding extra salt to the fries to encourage customers to purchase more drinks…”!)

I’ve not made/decorated a cake since Lucie’s birthday on the 4th December, with the exception of a very simple (time-constrained) Christmas cake for Lucie’s keyworker at nursery.

I’ve not made sugar flowers for even longer and I’m atually missing it at the moment. Maybe I’ll start on the flowers for my 30th birthday cake… it would make a change not leave decorating a cake until the last minute, although that would be some seriously advanced preparation!

I consider myself a very independent (ok, stubborn) person. I like to do things for myself and I hate to rely on anyone to help me - usually because they either don’t meet my high standards or they don’t meet my deadlines (yes, I realise that my I-want-it-done-now attitude doesn’t help me here!) As a result, I usually end up trying to ’self improve’ and learn how to do what I need myself.

With technology related issues, I’m more laid back because I realise that I have somebody on hand whose level of technical awareness I could never match - no matter how many hours of self-improvement time I committed! By this, I mean that I often find myself doing something on the laptop where, if Paul happens to be sitting next to me, he will start telling me how I could have done it quicker or suggest that he does it himself because he will be faster. (I’m just the same in the kitchen so I understand his desire for efficiency). However, I’ve decided that for a belated new year’s resolution, I will try to catch up again with simple technology, something that was never a problem for me when I was at work.

Starting with my blog… when you visit or refresh this page, there are two photographs that alternate. The idea from the beginning was always to have a few pictures, and I’d also like to update them every now again. Paul was going to arrange this back when my blog started over a year ago and I’ve been very patient. However, the man is busy and really shouldn’t be relied on as a personal helpdesk because of laziness.

So, watch this space to see if I can work it out!