I Send Cake To Myself

My sons are grown up and living independently, and more than capable, but there's a part of me that feels a tug towards their birthdays - of course I do. This includes some sense of responsibility for their happiness: a wanting them to have special days.

And since I feel an almost equal tug towards cake, which combines so naturally with this birthday wanting, it made sense to me at around lunchtime yesterday (even though I'd already given a card and presents at the weekend) to order a box of brownies from a company which promised delivery in time for my elder son's birthday which is today - just to make extra sure I'd done enough. 

I tapped his fairly new address into the cake company's online form - I felt confident and on familiar cake-based territory: that I knew what I was doing. 

In fact, because of the way Apple Pay works, I didn't. I now know, owing to an exchange with the cake delivery company, that yesterday, the payment app filled in the billing address (Shrewsbury) as the delivery address as well, despite my previous manual filling in of the intended delivery address (Gateshead). 

Damn.

So when I arrived home, after a tiring but hopeful day of therapy and walking, I found a parcel from DPD on the mat, and in my inbox the offer of a 10% discount on my next cake order as a gesture towards the inconvenience of the difference between Shrewsbury and Gateshead. 

Feeling that the 10% offer was missing the whole birthday point, I answered a timely videocall from my son. He looked cheerful and happy, as did his thoughtful fiancée who had, he demonstrated by turning his phone camera towards it, arranged a delicious-looking birthday cake, complete with icing and decorations. I explained the brownie mix up in a sort of rush of relief. "Never mind, Mum. Why don't you make a start on them, and we can carry on when I'm down next week - and how about we eat them while watching Gilmore Girls." I can't think of anything much nicer. 

With that double pleasure to look forward to, and reassured that my son is having a lovely birthday, I cut through the seal on the brownie box. 

Maybe I knew what I was doing, after all. 

I Cook WIth Apples

I am currently tree-less and so a colleague's gift of a bag of cooking apples was especially welcome. For her, they represent excess - for me, an invitation to abandon.

When boxes of apples are left out, free to passersby (and with spare bags kindly provided), you know that goodwill is close at hand.

I carried the apple bag on my lap on the train on the way home, the smell of garden and autumn liberating my journey. When I got back, I went out for an unnecessary bike ride in the chill of the late evening sun.

Of all the fruits that are for cooking, apples are my favourite. This is why:

• Core one, preferably a Bramley, score a line around its girth, stuff the centre with dates, crystalised ginger, sultanas and cinnamon, sit in a shallow dish with water and a sprinkle of demerara sugar, and bake at 180 degrees till it has spread its middle to a fluffy, pale confection. Serve with custard as my mother used to.
• Peel and core three or four, slice and sprinkle with cinnamon, set in a dish with a dash of water, cover with crumble mix (oats, SR flour, demerara sugar, butter, ginger) bake at 180 degrees till the apple is soft. Eat with crème fraiche in the dark looking out at the moon, and then cold, for breakfast.
• Peel one large apple, chop into small pieces, mix with SR flour, demerara sugar, sultanas, an egg, milk, butter, cinnamon, bake at 180 degrees. Leave on the side with a note for your son who's out with friends. APPLE CAKE - eat me.
• Peel and core one large apple to stew and eat with a pork chop. Unless you're vegetarian. In which case, sprinkle with sugar, and eat from the pan with a wooden spoon.
• Peel and core the rest until you reach the end of the bag. Cut the good pieces out of the one that is going brown. Stew the lot with a handful of sultanas and chopped dates. Cool, and keep in the fridge and when you dollop a spoonful onto your morning porridge, the heat of the porridge will warm the apple, making the whole just right, as if you were Baby Bear herself.

What a gift, the apple. What a temptation to joy and pleasure. How obvious to pick them or rescue the windfalls from the ground. What a generous and comfortable liberty. 

I Complete My 51st

I have finished my Fiftieth (50th) parkrun, but that was last week's news. Today, I ran my Fifty-First (51st). I was fuelled and inspired by the cake and candle Lucy Jay (LJ) gave me to celebrate.

I ate my slice of cake whilst my younger son ate a slice of his birthday cake, leftover from Monday's celebrations of his 18 years. We discussed the significance of 18 (voting, marriage without asking parental consent, drinking in pubs, 18 films). We discussed 17 and driving, then 16 (marriage with asking parental consent, age of consent).

He asked: Who'd want to get married at 16?
I said: Well, I did.
He said: You've changed.

We wondered if reaching adulthood is a process, or attained on one day, or, for him, at 9.04pm on Monday.

For my 50th parkrun, I dreamed of achieving a Personal Best (PB). I ran a harder than usual course in the grounds of beautiful Montacute House in Somerset with my Longest-Serving Friend (LSF), achieving a Personal Worst (PW). So, rather than hanging up my trainers and resting on my laurels, I got up today with renewed determination, did what I thought was a brisk run around my familiar Shrewsbury course, achieving a Personal Average (WTF).

My 50th cake was very good - almond and blueberry - for which it was absolutely worth waiting Two Hundred and Fifty Kilometres (250km).

My son said that the cake I made him, topped by a floppy-haired Hugh Grant, shows that I understand him completely. Now that's what I call a PB.

I Squash A Banana

When I emptied my rucksack this evening, I found a blackened banana at the bottom.  I put it in this morning firm, bright and yellow, intending to eat it with my lunch.

Montaigne advised that we mustn't regret, only reflect.  

I have squashed bananas before, and reflected on them. I have considered buying a yellow plastic banana-shaped case to protect my in transit bananas.  When I've squashed more than one banana at a time, I've made cake from them, counted my good fortune.

But try as I might, looking at this squashed banana: its skin split, its flesh oozing out, its smell tainting everything that had been in my rucksack: my purse, my pack of tissues, my Patti Smith CD,  my umbrella, my book about lemons, it's regret that I feel.