Sardinia - part 4 - Santu Lussargiu

It was Sunday and all the Sunday motards were out enjoying the roads on their mostly BMWs. We enjoyed the winding roads and the stupendous views too.

Many of the roads are a lovely orange colour. You can't see it so well on the photo above because the light was dingy, but in the sun they positively glow. We were on the west side of the island making our way down through the inland mountain roads. We passed through numerous villages - Aggius, Tempio, Ozieri, Mores, Thiesi, Ittiri, Putifigari, Villanova, and Alghero and a countryside sweet with the smell of gorse. The sun came out and melted both our grumpy moods from that morning.

After Alghero, we started looking out for somewhere to have some lunch along the coast. We came across a beach-side restaurant which did not serve lunch-time salads, and said so in a firm notice on the menu. You knew where you were at least...

View from beach restaurant that didn't serve salads

The view from the restaurant terrace was delightful in both directions. Looking south, you could see this glorious coastline and blue blue sea, looking north, you could see some old wartime bunkers tucked away among the bushes!

Bunkers

After lunch, the plan was to have a snooze on the beach, but my DB was suddenly taken violently ill in the restaurant loos, so after that we beat a hasty exit... I don't think it had anything to do with our lunch which was pretty innocuous - spaghetti and something. I had mine with bottarga, a Sard speciality of cured red mullet roe. I found it bizarre that restaurants wouldn't serve a nice big plate of salad. It's usually all I want at lunch time and I'm sure they could do a roaring trade in lunch time salads for tourists because they obviously get asked for them a lot seeing as they put that notice in the menu.

We continued down the coast and then went back inland to Cugliari and our destination, Santu Lussargiu. Our hotel for that night was one of the most delightful I have every stayed in, and if you have the opportunity to go there, do! The Antica Dimora des Gruccione is made up of a main building set in a one of the mansion houses of the town, with annexes not far away. It's owned by a woman called Gabriella whose ancestors lived in the main house, and she runs it professionally but gives a warm welcome to her customers. We were certainly impressed by our welcome. We even got the key to the garage where we could park the bike.

Our room was in an annex on the other side of the road at the back of the main house. There were two entrances. One gave onto an interior courtyard which you walked through to get to the rooms, and the other entrance gave onto the road with the garage next door. The stairs were very steep.

Annex on garage side, garage to the right

Our room on the top floor with balcony and washing.

Interior courtyard with washing trough

Very steep colourful stairs. Travel light...

On a walk around the town we learned that there are three types of old building depending on how rich the residents were. The smallest had one room in which you slept, cooked and lived. They often had ovens that poked out into the street for lack of space. Then came larger houses which perhaps had one extra level and more rooms. Then came the rich folks' mansion houses which were very grand.

Santu Lussargiu houses, love the anti-mosquito blue!

Santu Lussargiu one-roomers and larger houses

Hotel staircase. Mansions were very grand.

Hotel landing, lovely floor tiles

Authentic 'museum' reconstruction of a mansion kitchen in the hotel

Kitchen pots and pans in the hotel museum

Moi outside the main hotel entrance 

Our room had a fireplace with wood and matches available! The bathroom had a black granite stand-alone sink. Nice! The view over the rooftops was lovely. We sat and had a beer in the evening before dinner.

We guessed that the town must be quite prosperous because many houses had new roofs, and they were mostly freshly painted in bright colours. When we walked around the town, we peeked into the church and saw it was full.

Dinner was amazing. For €25 each we had a succession of anti-pasti - marinated red pepper pieces on bruschetta, cold beetroot soup with a dollop of cream cheese, quails legs, red pimento rolls, a selection of spring veg (broad beans, peas, asparagus) with pesto, smoked ricotta and ricotta; pasta curls with wild asparagus sauce and parmigiento, then the main course - local roast beef, and dessert was a light lemon mousse with cardamom. We drank half a bottle of a good local red wine and enjoyed it all immensely. The chef is a keen follower of the Slow Food movement, and there were Slow Food magazines in the museum kitchen. He had certainly put a lot of thought and effort into the food. My DB even had a vegetarian main course of roasted cheese on that thin bread they eat a lot of - very good too and rustled up on the spur of the moment.

We staggered back to our room and slept well on the excellent bed.

In Shock

I just want to interrupt telling you about Sardinia to reflect on some terrible news I had yesterday.

Three weeks ago, the 16yr old son of one of my friends was taken to the emergency department of our local hospital complaining of a pain in his lungs and feeling tired. He died at the weekend of a cancer that ripped through his body destroying all his vital organs, that rendered him unrecognisable at the end, and that chemotherapy had no effect on at all. Three weeks.

The doctors originally thought it was some sort of chest infection and put him on anti-biotics which of course did nothing. By the time they knew what it was it was too late, although it was probably too late anyway from the start. This sporty young man with his whole life ahead of him was suddenly and violently struck down, and his totally unexpected death has left his mother,younger brother and rest of the family in shock.

It's left all who know the family in shock too. I know there's no point asking the hows or whys. There are no reasons, no answers, but still, why him? A good lad from a nice family, not a multi-recidivist criminal who beats up old ladies. They never seem to be struck down in their prime unless it's by the Kalashnikov of a rival criminal and no one is terribly surprised.

I looked at my 16yr old son last night, as you do, and thought useless thoughts about how it could happen to anyone; it could happen to him, and there's absolutely nothing I can do to protect him or save him from such a vicious attack. The smallest microscopic entities on the planet are the ones that wreak the most destruction and you can go from being a happy family of three to a deeply traumatised family minus one in the space of three weeks.

There are no words to describe what they must be going through. I can't imagine it; all I can do is hope that they pull through in time, and that I never have to experience such terrible misfortune.

Rest In Peace young man.

Sardinia - part 3 - East coast to west coast

Holidays are lovely, it has to be said, but being thrown together 24h/24 as they say here in France can twang the happiest clappiest of nerves. Anyway, doesn't it grip the giblets more to read about the arguments of others than to snarl at the relentless perfection of their diplomatic relations?

So, rest assured, my DB and I had a good dose of désaccord. Nothing unusual there either. The last time we went on holiday he threatened to put me on the train home. I was already planning my weekend's partying (haha) when we rode on past the train station and our war of nerves abated.

Anyway, we spent the day riding around the Sardinian countryside. We left St Teresa in the rain and headed for one of the most beautiful parts of the island, the Costa Smeralda. The rain did not do it justice, frankly.

Costa Smeralda in the rain

A Costa Smeralda posh hotel in distance

It's a very posh area where the hotels are all more expensive than they would be elsewhere, one reason why we decided not to stay there - the main one actually! However we enjoyed visiting one little marina, Poltu Quatu which looked ultra posh tucked away in a natural inlet with room for what looked like 500 boats.

Poltu Quatu marina

Each mooring space had access to services such as electricity from those covered posts, and at the end was the dinkiest little village of white houses snuggled into the tiny space available. We went back at the end of our holiday and saw it looking completely different in the sunshine!

Poltu Quatu in the sun

We also liked Porto Rotondo - another well-to-do village, the coast of jutting headlands and (presumably) blue sea and other pretty villages. There are a lot of private houses built along the coast so you can't always see the views, but those you can are spectacular.

From the east coast, we drove across island to the west coast. It was raining so all I noticed was that it was hilly and green. I also noticed my left boot had split at the seam and hoped it wouldn't rain too hard or too much! Luckily the sun came out after lunch so my boots dried out as we rode along. I hadn't taken along spare shoes for lack of space that I needed for my Kindle and my netbook (priorities!) so that was a relief!

On the west coast, we went to visit Costa Paradisio - who could resist with such a name? It's a private holiday village but out of season they weren't checking who went in so we rode down to the sea and found a lovely little rocky inlet of vibrant orange granite where someone was diving for sea urchins.

Costa Paradisio, click to see sea urchin diver

Bucket of sea urchins to be sold to restaurants probably.

Costa Paradisio red rocks

I was intrigued by the sea urchins. My DB told me that what you eat is in fact the testicles and that if I cared to try them no problem, but he would avoid kissing me for an indefinite period... Naturally I was immediately determined to try them, but when it came to it, I lacked the balls to provoke a diplomatic incident.

It was time to head to our next lodging which we had chosen off the internet. There weren't many hotels around so I had found a place in the guide book Petit Futé which recommended staying on a farm, called 'Agriturismo', basically a rural chambre d'hotes. La Cerra provided bed and breakfast and dinner as they were miles from anywhere, all for €110 for two.

When we arrived, my DB was not sure he was going to like it, especially when he heard there was no wifi except in the evenings when the daughter had finished 'working' with it and relinquished the 'cube' to her father. What we should have done at that point was leave and find a hotel in the nearest town, but, unaware of our impending doom, I said brightly that it might be a bit basic, but it looked fine. The views were lovely from the outbuilding which had been converted into a row of 5 rooms.

View from the terrace in front of the rooms

I sat on a wicker chair and read my Kindle in the sun. As time went on, the other guests appeared, all Germans who seemed a nice hearty bunch. My DB muttered that he hoped we would not have to eat dinner at a long matey table on benches. He was now in a bad temper and stayed that way resolutely through dinner. Atmosphere...

I was expecting a good dinner as they had said there would be many courses. Dinner was served in a building a hundred metres or so from the bedrooms. My DB had a torch, luckily, or we would never have found our way back in the pitch black. There was no choice about what to eat (cue muttering from my DB who asked me if it would be vegetarian... haha some hope!). First we had a ham and mixed veg in cream cheese on a sort of dryish brioche. Not a good start. Then came a dish with that long wide pasta which was served with a courgette and mint sauce which was nice enough. Then we had the main course of home-reared veal chunks in a gravy with broad beans. It was very tasty actually, the meat was delicious. For dessert we were offered either an orange or an apple or a slice of ricotta cheese with a dark boiled honey sauce. Wanting something more exotic than a piece of fruit, I had the ricotta which was also nice enough; the honey was very rich and contrasted well with the cheese. We drank the only wine provided which was a red plonkino, drinkable but nothing more, and we were offered a glass of grappa or myrtille liqueur. My DB was generally not impressed and reckoned it was not worth the money.

Worse was to come because there were not enough blankets on the bed and the night was very cold. The bathroom had neither soap nor hair dryer so it was pretty basic too. Breakfast was taken at the long matey table (with chairs) - breakfast rolls, home-made jam, and very waxy honey. I was surrounded by the Germans who talked about football apparently. The final aggravating factor was that the guy didn't take credit cards but accepted cash or a bank transfer. One doesn't necessarily travel with one's internet banking information, and my DB was extremely annoyed at having to battle with the crappy internet connection to try and make the transfer. Even the coffee was bad as it wasn't made with an espresso machine, but one of those Turkish coffee boilers. He was all for doing a bunk in fact!

It took a few hours of riding in beautiful scenery until nearly lunch time for us to shake off the grumpy feelings. He felt that we'd been ripped off and that the place really wasn't worth the money which it probably wasn't. I suggested that it was, however, good to experience the variety on offer in a place, and that now he'd seen agriturismo (and developed a strong aversion to it) we didn't need to try it again, and he'd be grateful for whatever came next.

Always look on the bright side, I say (cue muttering and heavy shrugging).

Motorbike holiday to Corsica and Sardinia - part 2

I have long wanted to see Bonifacio, that town perched perilously on the cliffs at the very south point of Corsica. By fortuitous planning, we were catching the ferry to Sardinia from Bonifacio, a mere 50 mins crossing, and decided to spend our time visiting the town instead of taking the long winding mountain lanes inland from Porticcio. Taking them would add several hours to our journey and we would have had time for nothing else.

We took the scenic coast road instead, and arrived in Bonifacio in time for lunch.We found a sandwich bar, ordered a couple of sarnies and then went to sit on the other side of the road on the bar's terrace. My DB went off to use the loo so he wasn't there when the bar owner came over to give me a bollocking. We had committed the cardinal sin of ordering our sarnies at the bar instead of sitting on the terrace and waiting for the waitress to serve us. Was there a sign in hell-fire warning us NOT to order at the bar if we wanted to sit down? Nope, we were just supposed to know. Did I give a shit? Not really, I just wanted her to leave the sarnies, shut up and go away. Which she did, and we sat on the terrace and ate, in the sun. For the beginning of the season, she was a tad tetchy, I found...

Motorbikes park for free in Bonifacio, which meant we could enjoy the sites without getting ripped off at the end of it. We took a boat trip out to see the town from the sea for the spectacular views of it perched on the cliffs (which we would also see from the ferry but not so well...).

Bonifacio from the sea

The house at the end on the right belongs to actress Marie-José Nat

We had lovely weather for it, and the boat was packed. Lots of people had been stopped by the attractive girls plying boat trips along the marina. We were sat at the back of the front section which meant I could stand and take photos without bothering anyone. Cool.

Bonifacio from the marina

There's a little train that takes you to the top and drops you off for €10 (and brings you back down) but you can make exactly the same trip by car. The train shows you no more than you can see for nothing. Cars have to pay to park though. We had a party of extremely exuberant (post-lunch) retired fonctionnaires on our train who were loud and brash and thought themselves terribly funny the whole way up.

Coming into the port from the sea, ferry on right

 Later, we were on that ferry which wasn't packed but there are 15 crossings per day!

No cars in the old town. Wonder why...

Napoleon lived in Bonifacio for a while. His name is on a plaque on a house in the middle somewhere. Peeking inside, the stairs up were terribly steep, the sort you haul yourself up.

Looking east towards the cliffs from the edge of the town

The views were nothing if not dramatic, and seeing them in the lovely weather just made them all the more spectacular. You can see more amazing pictures on this website: www.bonifacio.fr 

Fortress walls

  

The coast looking north-west

I was happy to spend the afternoon there. Even on a motorbike holiday, it's nice to stop and visit sometimes, and Bonifacio is certainly worth the detour. I think it must be hell on earth in the summer though with all the visitors.

We got on a late afternoon ferry and arrived in St Teresa di Gallura, our port of arrival in Sardinia in a bit of a drizzle. It was also pretty chilly. Our hotel was marvellously placed in the centre, two minutes from the port, so we could pop into town to buy a map of Sardinia (much needed!), notice that no one was about because of the cold, and that the place looked dead.

How different it looked on our return a week or so later when the weather was good, the sun was out and the temperature balmy. The piazza was alive with chatting folk, the bars had happy drinkers, and the shops had customers.

Spring motorbike holiday to Corsica and Sardinia - part 1

My DB and I have just come back from over a week away. Du jamais vu! Yes, from Wednesday to Saturday ten days or so later we were over the hills and far away in (Corsica and) Sardinia. It was a marvellous break because Sardinia is so beautiful with such varied scenery, and it was amazing to have a so much time away together.

We went on the motorbike of course - Sardinia is a biker's heaven, with great roads in good condition and not too much traffic especially out of season. I packed my capsule wardrobe into my faithful little blue and green bag that my parents left after one of their visits many years ago, and is the exact size of the BMW side case. I'm getting good at it, but didn't know whether the evenings would be warm enough for a little top. They weren't, so I took two tops too many, a pair of black trousers too many, and over-packed a black jacket which I wear with the little tops and black trousers. But apart from that, I wore everything!

We rode to Marseille port, got on the overnight Corsica ferry and had a delicious dinner from a buffet starter, then really good pizza, and wine. There was also a menu for just buffet starter and buffet dessert which, with hindsight would have been better as the starters were so tasty, and I was looking forward to having on the boat going back. Just my luck that it was a different boat and company, and we had to use the motorway service station-style caff. Disappointing!

Corsica

The ferry deposited us at Isle Rousse (top left), so called because of the brilliant orange colour of the rocks, and we rode off in search of breakfast as it was only 7am. I was also looking for a bar with wifi as my son had badgered me just before we left (literally, like 5 mins before!) about some shoes he'd received from Brandalley, didn't like, and wanted me to buy some more. I was so not in the frame of mind for buying shoes on the internet, so told him to send me a link to the ones he liked. He suggested I give him my credit card details and website login so he could do it himself. Nice try, son.

So it was that I was sat in Calvi, at a bar overlooking the lovely little port with my café crème and croissants battling with Brandalley. I made the transaction and didn't notice the delivery date. When I did, several hours later at the hotel, I realised summer would be practically over before the shoes arrived and had to call to cancel the order. The things one does on holiday!

Terrible Corsican tourist road

We took the tourist coastal road south. It was full of pot holes, repaired pot holes, newly forming pot holes, and pot holes upon pot holes reproducing like rabbits. The weather was a bit hazy but not actually raining.

We stopped for lunch at Porto, bought some last minute just before it closed at midday supermarket sarnies and crisps and sat on the pebbly beach to eat. The pebbles were many and varied in colour and degree of speckling. Wet, they were a riot of colour.

So we had the port to our right, a look-out tower set up on a jutting rock just in front of it, the lovely blue sea before us, and some impressive sheer cliffs to our left. They had many a ring and other device for fixing climbers' ropes up the impossible-looking rock face.

Porto look-out tower

Rock climber's rock face. Click to see hooks and rings.

The pink granite rocks at the water's edge had been weathered into fantastic blobby shapes, as though a giant child had thrown down dollops of melting marshmallows and they'd set solid.

Porto rocks like marshmallows or rhinoceros hide.

We continued down, came across a bevy of Porsche 911s. The Owners' Club must have been having a day out because there was a good 40 or so of them. Some were speedier than others and went zooming off with a satisfying roar along the narrow winding roads. Luckily they met no one at the dodgier corners... My DB's sap rose, the adrenalin flowed, and he roared off after them, with me not taking pictures from the back...

Porsche 911 Owners' Club day out along Corsica's slightly better roads

Ajaccio came and went, and we stopped a few kilometres south at Porticcio, just off Agosta Plage at the Kalliste Hotel. Our room was an apartment kitted out from Ikea, with views towards the sea. It's practically brand new and a little bijoux. We had to dine out though as there's no restaurant. The receptionist recommended the Auberge de la Ferme just down the road. We walked there, got lost, had to call for directions and found it behind the Radisson at the end of a side road full of building materials and up a hill. We were a tad ratty by the time we arrived.

Still it was worth it, for the best veal daube EVER. It was tasty, tender, not full of smoked bacon or too olivey (like daubes often are), but just a perfect harmony of taste and texture. Pure bliss.

It felt good to be on holiday.

Free thinking in France

France is not like Britain. Obviously. But nowhere more obviously than in the variety of media political leanings. Brits might complain about newspapers, but at least you get a choice depending on whether you support right-wing attitudes (Daily Mail) or  lefty points of view (Guardian) or a bit of this bit of that (Independent although more lefty if their reader commenter-ship is anything to go by), etc.

In France we have far left, trendy left, left of centre, left left and all points in-between. The left have decided that they have the monopoly of 'competitivité moral' and if you want anything else the internet is the only place you'll find it. So, if your sources of news and information are newspapers and the tele which is nauseatingly left-wing then your world view will be based on the biased and politically correct attitudes of French entertainer-journalists. I wouldn't flatter them with the title of pure journalist because they have little capacity or indeed need for independent thought in their work.

Last night I watched 'Ce soir ou jamais' on France2. I usually avoid these 'discussion' programmes because all they offer is smug, self-satisfied verbal diarrhoea from a bunch of self-proclaimed leaders of opinion. Or you get a media lynching, or trial by vicious media luvvy where 4-6 politically correct moralisers 'debate' with one person who doesn't agree with them. They turn on the victim with the aim of humiliating, criticising, ridiculing, and breaking them so that they become destabilised and aggressive whereupon they are accused of being dangerously enraged.

Anyway, last night I watched the programme and, as usual, it was squatted by those-who-believe-themselves-superior-because-they-own-the-nation's-moral-compass. They were discussing economics, the rise of violence and the Boston bombings. One guy, a supposed humorist who I've never heard of, Alevêque, declared that he knew nothing about economics or geopolitics but he had a 'donneur de leçon' opinion anyway. Why he was there I have no idea unless it was to expose us to the 'common man' understanding of what was being said. Not that he would identify himself with the common man, heaven forbid. He was a peculiar shade of orange too.

Basically he had nothing to say, but he was given the same amount of speaking time as those who did have sufficient intelligence to say something worth hearing, and his idiotic statements were regarded with as much consideration as those who knew their stuff and added to the debate. He did not add to the debate, too stupid. He was just there to add moral fibre I suppose, a bit like verbal All Bran... (and similar in colour).

The same day, funnily enough, I received through the post a letter telling me about a new television channel called 'Notre antenne'. It is being set up by Philippe Milliau as an antidote to the nauseating mono-thinkers that pollute our screens on a daily basis. You may remember when I wrote about an exchange on a chat show where the star presenter declared that anyone who does not bide by politically correct diktats should be banned from the tele: "Mais on a le droit de penser ce que l'on veut" -"Non!".

There is an urgent need for a channel where you can think what you like, where debate covers both sides of an argument equally, where people who represent both sides of an issue are invited onto programmes in equal numbers and which does not pander to the lobbies of vocal minorities. The majority exists too, but they are not represented as such in the msm except to be criticised for not thinking or behaving politically correctly.

The channel will be available on the internet mainly because a politically incorrect group has no chance of obtaining the necessary authorization to broadcast from the CSA (body that dishes out television broadcast licences). New technology has made it possible to create a television channel for the internet which is less costly to produce than traditional television. More and more people have access to fast broadband connections thus by-passing their dependence on multi-national group/-millionaire owned, publicity-dependent tele.

Their first test broadcast was the Bobards d'Or 2013 which I watched, and which was very professionally produced.

The letter I got was asking me to support this fiscally advantageous project (66% off donations) with money, and/or four other types of contribution: an office in Paris, voluntary help from those with televisual experience, ideas for programmes, or time to give a hand with manning the phones, administration, etc. for those living in Paris.

I think it's a very interesting project and I'll be watching out for further news on its progress. If you have any ideas for them, you can contact them by a gmail address: projectnotreantenne.

Yet another birthday cake disaster

My youngest was 12 last week. Happy birthday fiston! He had plans for three lots of celebrations with his friends plus an extra one for the family. When I asked why he said that he has friends who differ in age and type and would be unlikely to get on, so he would prefer to do things with each group separately.

He had planned a packed agenda too. Saturday morning was to be the cinema party with one group, Saturday afternoon would be a couple of rounds at LaserGame, and then on Sunday the last group would troop off for an afternoon of paintball.

He also wanted a birthday present. My credit card was steaming at the very thought of all this despite the fact that kids would be asked for a financial participation instead of a present. In the end I was sick in the run up to his birthday and just managed to get the LaserGame outing organised. It was all rather haphazard, but the kids were dropped off on a rainy Saturday at the tram station together with one other mother who I didn't know would be accompanying us, but was grateful that she did. We hopped on the tram, all 10 kids, and they kept relatively quiet and sensible on the journey to Odysseum mall tram stop.

I hate the place to be honest. It's a large shopping centre with vast cinema complex, ice rink and LaserGame. I was too late with my reservation to have the birthday option where the staff provide disgusting cake and watered down soda, but we'd enjoy a homemade cake and full strength soda once we got back home. For this occasion, I'd just brought water and sweets for that all-essential birthday sugar rush.

The all-boy party was gatecrashed by two others whose parents asked if they could join in as they weren't in a group. I said yes, but if there's ever a next time I'll say no as they were a right pain apparently.

They finished all nice and sweaty and a bit niffy so we went back out into the rain to take the tram back to the cars. Back home, the boys dived into the soda, crepes with Nutella, and the white chocolate birthday cake.

When I say 'white' I mean that the chocolate used was white because the cake itself was a little, um, off-white. I made it that morning having rushed to Carrouf to buy supplies. It was all going swimmingly but I'm crap at making birthday cakes; they always turn out wrong, except last year's which in a desperate effort to make one that little French boys would eat (they don't like my Brit fruit cakes), I made from a packet (and it tasted like it).

My oven has an automatic cake setting and I foolishly trusted the supposedly smart technology to tell me when the cake was perfectly done. Well, either we have different interpretations of 'perfectly done' or the smart technology was off having a weekend break or a nervous breakdown because while I was making the crepes I could also detect a whiff of burning.

The oven beeped to tell me that it had decided that cake was done, and opened the door to discover a burnt disaster which would have been fine as barbecue fodder but didn't exactly hack it as a birthday cake. I stood at the hob making crepes and wondering how to save the cake. I let it cool for a while then decided I should try and turn it out. As one crepe was cooking, I turned the cake upside down and put the tin on the rack as the cake was a wee bit stuck. I went back to the crepe and then once the next one was on the go, I bashed the cake tin hoping to jig it out of its stupor.

Well it worked... partly. The crown of the cake detached itself from the rest and landed on the rack together with a large blob of chocolatey cake goo. Bugger. I hurriedly turned the tin the right way up and popped the 'lid' back on, and got my youngest to scoop up the goo with his fingers. He pronounced it delicious, which was encouraging...

I then got the heavy mob out - a spatula - which I dug down and round the side of the cake and freed it from its tin encasing. The crepes were by this time coming out a little over-cooked as I tried unsuccessfully to multi-task. Forcefully unstuck from the tin, the cake landed on my hand in an effort to protect the dodgy crown and I got it back on the rack without further trouble.

Then I thought I'd better scrape off the black bits because it didn't look appetising, a birthday cake that resembled a lump of coal. In-between crepes (yes I made a huge pile, and they all went...) I scraped and hacked at the black bits and once the crepes were finally done, could really get to it. By the end, the cake looked like toast does when you scrape off the burnt bits...

Icing! I thought. The cake needed icing. I found a recipe that required 30g of white chocolate and a tablespoon of water. This is not a large quantity of either, and they had to be melted in a saucepan and then boiled for 2 minutes. The melting bit went okay, but when it came to boiling, I had to rescue it in extremis as it started to brown pretty quickly. So my white icing became white with brown bits. I added the icing sugar and a bit more water which did nothing to take away from the white with brown bits look, and poured it over the cake. As the crown had a healthy dent from its bid for freedom, most of the icing tried to settle there and had to be forced to cover the rest of the cake. I then discovered I had previously chucked out all the candles in a mad clear-out except for one batch of eight. Oops.

The end result? It would never win Baked Off Britain (or whatever the show is called) or even get past a vague chat about entering the competition, but it did in fact taste divine. It was light and chocolatey and not sickly at all. There was none left at the end of the party, not a crumb.

Object allegedly identified as a birthday cake plus other birthday tea paraphernalia.
PS that is the other mum's hand... I was mopping up spilt Coke...

The thought of going through all that again with the other groups was not a thought I wanted to entertain, so after I'd taken my son on his birthday to get his trottinette re-kitted out at vast expense, then dinner for the family at PandaWok, he agreed that that was probably enough.

Cue big sigh of relief.