Birthday Daze

It's official, as of Sunday afternoon and Sunday morning respectively, H and I are another year older. 29 is a curious age; I am more consciously aware now that I'm in the last year of my 20s, that this will not come again, that I'm not in the youngest group of colleagues at work anymore, and that they are not just a couple of years below me - these are the peeps who were in junior school when I left school.

All this is not to say that I'm old, or even feeling old, far from it - perhaps just a little more consciously aware of the passing of time on one brief, occasionally sunny, solitary Sunday in June.

Saturday however, went past in a blur of baking and icing - we had a couple of friends over on Sunday and I was determined that I was not going to spend my birthday running round like a mad thing so it was all done in advance and H cleared it all up on Monday. The piece de resistance was our birthday cake (and I defy anyone to call me grown up having seen it!).

There's a story behind this though - H hurt his finger in a hockey match a little while ago and after he got fed up with explaining the true reason why he was all bandaged up, he told anyone who asked that he had been bitten by a very tiny shark.

A few weeks later, while browsing the cook shop (what? don't you all do that in your lunchtimes) I found a little shark shaped biscuit cutter of about the right size to have inflicted a finger bite - and gave it to H for giggles.

A colleague suggested that if we had a shark then really we needed a pirate ship for it to swim around, and then we discovered a pirate ship cake tin for half price in Lakeland and .....

well the rest, as they say, is cake:


Let me take you on a tour around the good ship Cariemay and the Isle de H.

From the bow we see that the ship has unfortunately become distracted by the natural beauty of the Isle de H and has beached itself upon the shore. The Bonny figurehead will no more cleave the wide wide ocean.

The anchor is still stowed safely aboard as the pirates disregard all useful maritime practices in favour of counting the treasure piled high on the foredeck.

Amidships, the hold overflows with precious jewels, glinting in the tropical sunlight.

On the quarterdeck, a parasol keeps away the heat of the solstice sun, to allow the steersman to protect the wheel. Woe betide anyone who attacks the Cariemay, she is armed to the gunwales with cannon and shot!


Here we have Bigheart Jelly Baby being made to walk the plank (a pink wafer biscuit secured with a cocktail stick), and the treacherous seas and sharks below

And in the water, Jelly Baby Boofuls has already become the sharks' first victim (and impressively is still managing to cry despite having lost his legs to the shark - it is for this that my father says my imagination is gruesome)

Jaws makes off with the Jelly feet mid munch.


At the ships's stern, prawns frolic in the breakers.



While on the island itself, a gentle breeze ruffles the fronds of the palm trees.



There are treasure chests, brimming with silver doubloons, precious pearls and flowers of the orient. And in the sand, a hazy shimmer shows that X marks this spot.

The pirates have clearly been enjoying a brief sojourn as landlubbers, but brought their essentially with them; barrels of grog and rum and bananas!


And here she is in all her glory - fully rigged and with a swinging main boom.



We did however dispose of the rigging to add 29 candles!



The only question I have is this - what on earth am I going to make next year!