Tuesday 29th November 2022 - Destined for Disaster, a Great Weekend and Conclusions

You know how it is, when you are having visitors and want everything to be, if not perfect - as near as. Amongst other things, I decided to make a gluten free walnut cake but this turned out to be far from perfect and pretty well destined for disaster. Firstly, the recipe said to cook it in two separate sandwich tins for twenty-five minutes but at this point the centres where still fluid and the middles promptly sank. After a further ten minutes they were cooked but retained a dip in the middle. If this wasn’t bad enough, once they were cool, I put them in a tin to leave and fill the following day, but as I put the tin in a cupboard the base and top parted company. Cakes fell to the floor but fortunately stayed in the tin. One broke into three and the other was fragmented. I have to admit, at this point, the air in the kitchen was a little ‘blue’. However, the next day I was able to cobble it together with the buttercream filling and when I came to cut it, I managed to achieve some fairly even slices – definitely not perfect but all things considered; as near as.

Over the weekend, we enjoyed walks with our our visiting family, lunch at The Foundry in Northrepps, dinner at the Sea Marge and a bottle of champagne was opened to celebrate our son-in-law securing a new career position. All in all, it was a great weekend and thanks to technology we will see each other over Christmas, when they will be the opposite side of the globe, with family in New Zealand.

After banking the final promised donation for the Poppy Appeal this morning, I have been able to complete my returns this afternoon just ahead of the deadline – phew. I just need to tidy the paperwork before I can put the file away until next year. Before I completed the returns, we took a walk on the beach and were asked by a group of students, presumably staying at Kingswood, if we would answer some questions. These were basically our opinions about the sea defences and whether the coastline here should be protected and why. Assuming they asked other beach walkers, and with so many factors to consider, I did wonder what conclusions they will draw and whether they will be representative, given their relatively short stay in the area.

Today’s photo is of a gull who I have named Oliver (Twist). It follows us when we are walking along the promenade in the mornings, in the hope we have some titbits for it, which we invariably do. Not satisfied with one treat, it keeps asking for more, hence the name!