Cakes, Puppies and Kittens!

So it's been 7 months today since I last wrote or released anything on here. This revival isn't timed purposely, it's just serendipity that makes it a nice round number.

Quite a lot has happened since then. I will very quickly summarise:

• I travelled around New Zealand
• I returned to the UK
• I travelled around the UK and Ireland
• I decided I want to get a job again
• I have got a job offer
• I have been doing A LOT of waiting.

And that last point is what ultimately brings me back here. I have nothing but time on my hands. I received a job offer about 2 months ago now but am still going through the various reference and security checks required and I still have no indication of when I might actually be starting... But enough of that for now.

I'm sure no one was hugely disappointed when I stopped posting, and I'm sure no one will be particularly excited that I'm back on here again but hey, just like photos of holidays are more for the person on vacation than to those they show them to, I'm sure some parallels can be drawn to blogging. Anyway, I stopped writing after the post about my Grannie. I released two more posts, but they had already been written before hand and all I had to do was press Publish. I just didn't really feel like writing after that and decided to just enjoy my time in New Zealand. That's somewhere I've wanted to to go for a very long time and even almost ended up moving there for work a couple months ago so I'm sure I will write the back logs of at least some of my travels still.

But for the moment, a slight detour on my normal travel writing and onto the subject of this post. I will have to admit, I have mislead you all slightly. Whilst I really want a puppy, this post is not about puppies or dogs. And whilst I really do not want a kitten, this post is not about that either. However, this post is about cakes! So into the moist, delicious heart of the matter.

If anyone recalls from the post about my Grannie (recap here if anyone really wants), I showed an image of Grannie at my cousin's wedding and mentioned that the rest of our chances have dropped significantly since losing Grannie's influence. Well, somehow, my eldest brother Ben has managed to convince, trick, blackmail or otherwise coerce someone into agreeing to marry him!

That's right:

Somehow, this...

Has managed to go to this.

I believe this is a classic case of what one might classify as punching above one's weight. But take heart; if Ben can manage this - so can you! Stay tuned for his best selling novel telling you all the secrets to a successful relationship!

All of this is in good jest, and far more importantly and more excitedly is my role in this: I have been asked to make their wedding cake! See, we got to cake eventually.

I'm sure many of you know that I love to bake and I'm sure many of you also know that I have made a couple of wedding cakes before. I ended up making two for one wedding for a very good friend of mine a couple years ago.

Now I wasn't blogging at the time so didn't document the process at all but it was a rather interesting time. I had moved to Australia about a month before their wedding and so flew back shortly after settling in. I was staying at their house and had ordered a whole bunch of baking supplies to get there in time for me arriving as all of my possessions were still in transit on a boat from the UK to Australia. So it was using an unfamiliar mixer, all new equipment and someone else's oven and all at the same time as having to make last minute preparations, shopping for clothes for myself for the wedding and also seeing some friends in my short time in the UK. It was a fun few days leading up to the wedding and the wedding was an excellent day and the whole process went fairly smoothly apart from one slight mistake of icing the wrong cake with the wrong icing. But I won't go on for the moment as this is already getting quite lengthy. See below the final products!

As I'm sure you can tell from the picture there was a cake for the bride and one for the groom as they both had different preferences for flavours. And yes those are Daleks bedecked in a veil and top hat. The bride's cake is lemon cake with my famous lemon curd filling and frosted in vanilla butter cream. The groom's cake is chocolate fudge with a strawberry coulis filling (I think) and a white chocolate Swiss butter cream frosting, complimented by white and dark chocolate tuxedo'd strawberries. I was given free reign on creative control after the initial flavour suggestions and I can honestly say that I am very proud of the results, but that creative control was rather stressful for someone else's wedding. So with that experience, I told Ben's fiancée Amy (obviously the one in charge of these kinds of decisions) that I wouldn't be taking quite such a leading role in these decisions this time which she was more than happy with. So with a bit of discussion so far, final decisions have yet to be made but it looks like I'll be heading down a more traditional style cake this time. But, to make sure that my life won't be too easy, the cake will have to be completely gluten free for allergy reasons. This should be an interesting challenge as I have not done much in the way of any gluten free cooking before as I love my gluten, but at least I have my own mixer and equipment this time. But that does mean that I should have plenty of test cakes to eat (and maybe even share) over the next few months.

I'm sure that's enough writing to chew on for the moment! So until the next time.

A Tribute to the Humble Without Reason

You know how hard it is to begin writing an essay? Or a job application? Or even sometimes just an email? Well, how the hell does one begin writing something when you feel that there is no way that you can do justice to the subject that you are about to try and honor through the medium of text? I wish I could write poetry or music or sonnets or even just be a better writer - I feel I have no business in even trying to compose a compendium on a persons life when I look around at all the examples of the far better, far more beautiful works that I read all the time. But, I can't write music, or poetry, and I can only write as well as I can at the moment - so you'll have to suffer through, and I only hope that I can do justice to someone who deserves nothing but.

Two weeks ago my Grannie died. Two days ago, she would have been 91. Yesterday was her funeral. 

Stealing a bit of thunder at her grandchild's graduation

I thought she was going to make her birthday, I selfishly hoped that she was going to last another couple months, I foolishly did not spend as much time as I should have speaking to or seeing her these past 13 years - but I feel that one will always think that when someone is no longer there. And here I am, over 16,500 km away, enjoying myself on the east coast of Australia. Racked with guilt for having the audacity to enjoy myself at such a time, not being there when she died, for not being there for the funeral, for not being there to support my Mum who just lost her mother and best friend; all compounded by being torn apart by feeling some sense of relief for not being there - no matter what people say to you, you feel like a terrible person for even having an inkling of those kind of feelings. 

I'm not good at emotions (and yes I've written it like that on purpose). I feel awkward, ashamed and emasculated at the prospect of displaying how I feel openly (god-forbid). I much prefer to maintain a stoic, controlled façade with which I can calmly deal with what's going on around me. Now this is great a lot of the time and means I can think clearly in times of high stress or emergencies, however, it's not an ideal way to go through life in terms of dealing with grief, etc. And I this is why I've chosen to try and write something instead. I've stayed quiet this week on the blogging front as a sign of respect for the passing, and now I will try to honor my Grannie, Wendy's, memory. 

Here goes everything...

Grannie at her 90th birthday

I've obviously known my Grannie for the past 26 years, since I was born. I have many memories of her coming to visit us in America always bringing with her British sweets, Dandy and Beano comics and ham sandwiches (quite illegally of course but also for some reason one of the most vivid things I remember about helping her unpack her suitcase). I also remember visiting her in Britain on several occasions growing up, my main memories of these times again being the sweets, collectible football stickers and the river across the road from her Bungalow in North Wales.

Outside her bungalow of  30 years, early this year with all of her children and grandchildren -  I think I have more hair there than everyone else combined...

I moved to the UK a week after I had turned 13 with my mum and three brothers. In what epitomises the very essence of Wendy, she welcomed us with open arms to her two bedroom bungalow where we lived for the first few months before Mum could find a place for herself. Just over a year later, my dad died. We had moved out by that point but we spend the next few days back at my Gran's house. My reaction when I got the news back at the house, was to promptly walk out of the lounge, away from everyone, into my Grannie's room and promptly lie face down on the bed and not talk to anyone for about a day (see - emotionally retarded from a young age). Instead of coming to bother me or move me, I was left there and Grannie happily took the fold out sofa to leave me with myself. From this point on, Grannie stepped up even more than she already had to help raise me and my brothers and support Mum. From babysitting, helping with school, preparing in the mornings, feeding or punishing (Grannie had very hard hands for a good spanking - not that I'd know of course, I was an angel and never got punished and only know this from hearsay from my brothers...).

Since that time, Grannie has been such a significant, consistent and important presence in my life, that it has yet to really click that she is no longer there. Nothing has technically changed for me yet, having been on the other side of the world for the past two years. And I can't even imagine what it's going to feel like not being able to walk the two minutes down the road to her house when I return home in a short 6 weeks time, it just doesn't even make sense in my head, as it's never happened each time I returned home to visit. It's all I can do to not try and delay the inevitable return. I'm just very happy that I decided to book a surprise trip back over Christmas so that I was able to see one last time, say some semblance of goodbye and have her see me in a considerably better spirit than I had sounded for the past couple years, else I don't know if I would have ever seen her again, not being originally due back again until May this year, though knowing her, she probably would have stoically and stubbornly hung in there until I had made it back.

My brothers and me with Grannie. I'm the upside down one (not much has changed), and I'm fairly sure that Ben has Nick in a death grapple rather than a hug (also not much changed).

Wendy was a talented and worldly woman with a plethora of talents and amazing personal qualities. She enjoyed gardening, reading, tapestry, woodwork and going to the theatre all the way through her life until she unfortunately became significantly partially sighted a few years ago. However, she never complained about this once, 'she just got on with things', as my Mum puts it, and continued to be her wonderful self. Mum aptly, summarises the wonderful person that Wendy was through the qualities that she passed on to her through example: empathy, strength, forgiveness, honesty, generosity, laughter, a sense of the ridiculous, how to listen, the importance of friendship, loyalty and an abundant capacity to live: this list could go on and on. She has even 'adopted' several children's (including my Godmother) and grandchildren's friends who may not have had a mother or grandmother of their own, fully incorporating them into her love and family including sending regular letters, Christmas cards, birthday cards and even wedding presents. As both Mum and Tina Turner phrased it - she was simply the best (the original song may or may not have been about Wendy).

Just prior to this photo, Grannie decided to have everyone yell 'Sex!' instead of the more traditional 'Cheese!'. It works very well to generate a fake or genuine smile, so feel free to adopt it for any future photos - especially in front of your grandparents, remember it was Grannie's idea!

Granny was one of the first real 'Wendys' in existence, being named as such as her mother knew James Barry, the author of 'Peter Pan' and even receiving a signed copy of the book as a christening present. She was born and grew up in Liverpool before moving to London at the age of 18 to study nursing at Guy's Hospital, working throughout the Blitz of WWII and distinctly remember trying to beat out fires in her backyard with a bin lid at the behest of her father after a particular incendiary incident. Her career perfectly suited Wendy's compassionate, empathetic and kind nature and transitioned perfectly to the role of mother and grandmother, even earning her another fairy tale nick name of 'The Pied Piper' as she took all the children from her road to school every day even after her own two children had moved on.

Wendy's life has been lived to the fullest with many adventures both known to me and unknown. These include those listed above as well as washing dishes at the Strand Palace Hotel after her date didn't have enough money to pay for their meal, getting a little tipsy and very stately on the Orient Express for her 70th birthday and even including deciding to jokingly declare that she was a lesbian if there was ever a lull in the conversation - it's definitely one way to pick the conversation back up. I can only wish now that I was able to learn more of her rich, adventure filled life in the time that I had with her.

Grannie and me before my days of being a hairy buffoon.

As only the most humble and unassuming among us can be the most deserving of a tome of recognition written about them, Wendy will be sorely missed by her friends, neighbours, community and of course her family. The world is that little less bright without her, but she is at least now at peace and without pain, having left this world "like a little flower slowly fading away" as Mum described her shortly before she died.

So please raise your glasses, hug your loved ones, love those around you unconditionally, be the best person that you can be; in the memory and honor of Wendy Stewart; mother, grandmother, friend, nurse, wife, jester, and rock to many - you will be sorely missed by many people for many years to come.

At my cousin's wedding last year, seeing the eldest of her 6 grandchildren married off from the less fighty side of the family - My brother's and my chances have dropped significantly since losing her influence.