I have cake, and someone has won the giveaway

And the winner is......

Kitschy Cooooooooo! Lucky girl :)

I too am a winner, as I've had a cracking birthday. Me and mr pickledweasel ran away to Llandudno yesterday for a whole child-free 24 hours. Although we'd been there only a couple of years ago, I had somehow re-invented Llandudno in my head as a sophisticated wine bar and Michelin starred restaurant filled coastal resort with balmy nights and 4 star hotels on every corner, so was a little surprised to find it was a freezing cold slightly run down welsh town full of cheap B&Bs and, bizarrely enough, the Cambrian Rally.

We lived it up. I had a tea while we waited for the film to start.

So rather than wear the satin slash neck dress and purple suede wedge pumps I was planning to stun the north Welsh coast with, I just stuck with my jeans and jumper and we had dinner early at a Mediterranean restaurant, and then went to the cinema to see The Other Guys (which is an hilarious film). We stayed in a crappy hotel where the bathroom smelt of swimming pool and got woken up at 1am by drunk rally drivers, and then this morning we went to a greasy spoon overlooking the sea and had a huuuge fry up, and then did a leisurely promenade walk.

And mr p had a coffee.

Back in time for tea with Munchkin and Grandma Pickledweasel, and just as I was thinking I wasn't getting a birthday cake and I'd have to stuff my face with the jelly munchkin had helped grandma make, mr pickledweasel unveiled this beauty:

Isn't it a thing of skill and beauty? I love the foot :) AND it's all different cakes inside - the top is walnut cake, the side is angel cake and the bottom is Madeira. It makes turning 35 just about bearable :)

Domestic Bliss

Beautiful, isn't it? Munchkin and I had a very productive afternoon. She learnt how to open cupboards, and I made a date, coffee and pecan cake. And I managed to get the kitchen back to its normal reasonably tidy state before dinner. Everyone's a winner :)

Rhubarb and Custard

Mmmmmm, rhubarb....*drool*
Last night I made Rhubarb Cinnamon Polenta Cake, using this recipe from Nigel Slater in the Observer Magazine a couple of weeks ago. I'm always tearing out recipes and stuffing them in the back of my cook book in the hope that one day I'll get round to doing them, but they normally stay crumpled up and un-used :(

So this time I bought the rhubarb from the market specifically so I'd have to make it, and I finally got time last night. It was deeeeelicious, so much so it didn't even need custard :)

I've also had a chance to test out my new fabric paints, but I'm not that impressed. The sample I'd put through the washing machine didn't fare very well - the glitter had washed off completely from the purple! I had some T-shirt samples from wholesalers that I've been using as test garments and I thought I'd try out some Easter stamps and try washing them again. I'm liking the chicks, but thinking the design needs to end in 'egg': Egg, Chicken, Egg, Chicken, Egg! My quest for the perfect fabric paint continues....