sniffle snuffle

It’s all hankies and tea round here today, with the occasional theatrical sigh thrown in. Yep, I’m full of cold, and have been busy feeling mightily sorry for myself with it.

Fortunately for everyone, I can’t feel sorry for myself for very long, and after plenty of tea had been consumed, I wrapped up warm and ambled slowly off to the charity shops for a little Saturday afternoon mooch. As it happens, I didn’t buy anything at all the charity shop, although I did try on the most fabulous pair of pink sparkly shoes (too small sadly, but I was cheered just looking at them).

(I was hankering after a saxophone, maybe a bit of a specialist request for an average charity shop. and no, I don’t play the saxophone – not yet anyway!)

Trudging home carrying bags of orange juice and peanut butter, snuffling and wishing I was in bed, I spotted these jolly sunflowers in the reduced bucket outside the flower shop (I love that reduced bucket). Obviously I dashed inside to pay for them immediately – one single pound, and these happy sunshiney flowers came home with me and are brightening up the living room. Yes, they’re a little raggedy around the edges, but hey, I can sympathise with that today.

It also seemed like the day for a little baking. Especially since I made a rather tasty toffee apple cake yesterday and there appears to be none of it left. Hmm.

Our lovely neighbours gave us some cooking apples from their tree, and so far I’ve managed to do nothing with them other than make cake. Plenty of it, and I keep intending to take some over to them, and haven’t quite been quick enough yet…

So, toffee apple cake. I don’t do recipes, so this is just your basic sponge cake, however you like to make those (mine involved some sugar, a bit of olive oil as it was the only fat in the house, 3 eggs, and quite a bit of flour). I put apples and sugar on to boil, no water, and didn’t bother peeling them, and then busied myself making a risotto. Inevitably I burned the apples, which had turned into a thick, toffee-like goo in the bottom of the pan. Still, nobody will notice the slightly burnt taste in a cake, right? Right??

As it happened, it was the most gorgeous squidgy cake I’ve had in a while!

I tried to do the same thing today, but was clearly paying too much attention, and just couldn’t get the apples to burn. So just a pretty ordinary apple cake today, rather than a special toffee apple one, but that didn’t stop me munching rather a lot of it and oops, there’s now not enough to send over to the neighbours without looking like, well, like I ate half their cake.

Looks like I’ll just have to try again tomorrow (or maybe I’ll take them some jam…)

Ooh, and shall I tell you what else is cheerful? (apart from the Most Excellent combination of strawberries and cake, that is?)

This joyful offering of daily emails that Madelyn will be sending out in October, that’s what. So exciting!

(I took Madelyn’s e-course the art of living cheerfully earlier this year as a little present to myself, and oh! What fun! Six weeks of frivolity, journalling, photography, and generally practicing the art of living cheerfully.)

Tomorrow I hope to be sniffling a lot less, and have got a little mini local adventure, or perhaps even two, planned. Back here before bedtime folks!

xx

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