Food, Men and The Weekend...

By Ardfern

It was DD's birthday this week, so I asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted. Son Number One had a brief flirtation with a glamorous new creation from Mary Berry, complete with cream-cheese frosting for his recent birthday, but DD wanted the usual double-chocolate cake.  I made it, and we did the whole candle bit - very satisfying, in every meaning of the word.

Unfortunately, DD didn't have room to pack the remaining cake when she went back to university. The plan was to freeze it in slices, but that didn't happen. She left it here, and now not much of it is left! It's such an easy recipe and so good, I'll make another one to celebrate the day she comes back again. That'll be after her finals, so it'll be a double celebration, to go with the double-chocolate cake.

One of DD's presents was the DVD of The Hobbit. I sat through the whole film trying to remember where I'd seen "Kili" before - of course, it was Aidan Turner, who was in Being Human a few years ago.

This weekend I'm taking a break to try and get the garden up together. After two years of terrible weather and back-to-back-deadlines, my poor garden has reverted to long grass. The wildlife loves it, but it's nice to have some parts where we can sit outside without feeling we're in a jungle.

This week, I'm offering the chocolate birthday cake recipe free for new subscribers to my newsletter. The next edition of that will be out in May - to sign up, just email me at christinahollis@hotmail.co.uk with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.