Birthday Treat

This year I turned 31. That officially puts me firmly in the brackets of a thirty-something. Earlier this month I filled in a survey online and noticed that my age bracket was listed as "30-50". That, my friends, is middle age.

I'm not quite at the point of having a mid-life crisis, running out and buying a motorbike and then taking off on a Europe-wide drive to nowhere in particular. I am, however starting to take stock of what I have in my life, and just how lucky I am to have it.

First of all, I'm married to an amazing woman in Christelle. She has stood by me and supported me for the last eight years. She has pushed me to be the best I can be, and helped me grow from a shy, ambitionless boy into the man I am today. I know I am not yet the finished article; I still have plenty of growing up to do, but I feel confident knowing that Christelle will be there to share the journey with me.

Then there's Lydia. Words cannot describe how lucky I am to have a daughter like her, so cheeky and so funny and yet so intelligent. She has never been an easy child, and - as I have said many times before - there were countless moments of frustration and exasperation on both her side and ours as she grew from a helpless baby to a near-independent toddler. I swear, if she could change her own nappies she would have moved out by now. Yet every second I have spent with Lydia is another cherished memory, and I would not have them for the world.

I have an amazing extended family with my own family in England and that of Christelle's here in Switzerland, and I know I can count on them all in times of need. My parents have always supported me in everything I have done, and I cannot begin to imagine how I might have turned out if they had not instilled me with such a strong sense of right and wrong, respect and manners. I am lucky to have them in my life, and even though several hundred miles now separate us I feel closer to them than ever before. And as for Chris' family, they could not have done more for me since I moved here, making me feel welcome and showing me their country and their culture.

To make things even better, I have a nice apartment, a car I like and a job I love. What else could a 31-year old man ask for? Well, maybe a little win on the lottery couldn't hurt, but aside from that I really feel like a man who has everything.

So what do you get for the man who has it all on his birthday?

Lydia knew how to answer that question, as she made me a present with her own fair hands (see photo).

She painted a canvas herself and stuck down shapes over the top, creating a colourful piece of art work. This was a lovely present that she was so happy to give me, and it really made my day.

Although she had a little help from Christelle's parents, they included photos with the present to prove it was really Lydia who made it (the little photo hanging under the canvas in the photo). Next step for me is to find the perfect place to hang this in our apartment...

My happy birthday was further enhanced by a lunch at one of my favourite restaurants, the Restaurant des Berges in Vidy. I love this place because they serve delicious filets de perches with fries and tartare sauce, and they are right on the edge of Lac Léman in Vidy allowing for a gentle post-feast stroll by the lake. To top all this off, it was brilliant weather with hot sun and blue skies.

I had a wonderful birthday this year, and couldn't be happier with where I am in my life. The mid-life crisis will have to wait until another year.

A Cake fit for a Princess!

Well, we did it. We actually managed to bake a cake that a) looked pretty good, and b) was edible.

To my knowledge, no one who ate a bite of cake ended up either in hospital or face down in the toilet for several hours, and no police officers called on our door to arrest us for attempted bakery (i.e. pre-meditated mass poisoning), so on all accounts it could be considered a pretty good first attempt.

I wrote last week about my trepidation as we braced ourselves to plunge into a world of sugar frosting and cake-carving chaos (see To Bake, or not to Bake...). I really was not looking forward to the task, given our complete lack of experience in baking anything other than pre-made mixtures of bog-standard "cake-in-a-box" goodies.

As it turns out, I need not have been so worried.

We had already decided to make a cake in the form of one of Lydia's favourite CBeebies characters, IgglePiggle from In the Night Garden. IgglePiggle is a more or less man-shaped creature who is entirely blue from head to toe, save for some sprouty bits of red hair, and completely naked. This meant we didn't have to fiddle around with multiple colours or worry about different layers. In essence, it meant making a blue cake and sticking some hair on it.

The Night Garden is a strange forest world populated by characters called IgglePiggle, Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka, the Tombleboos and many other bizarre things. To be honest, I'm not really a fan of In the Night Garden. For me, it's a little too much like the Teletubbies in that it's main characters are weird creatures that cannot speak properly or even say anything other than their own name. Each episode is also incredibly dull as they seem to do the same thing every time. However, Lydia loves it and gets excited at the sight of Makka Pakka pushing his odd little tricycle around or Upsy Daisy "singing" into her megaphone, so it seemed like a good choice for the cake.

Just before the end of last week, I raised the possibility to Chris of making a simple cake and then shaping an IgglePiggle out of marzipan (or icing) to sit on top. Fortunately for both of us, she agreed with this idea and we set about making the cake on Saturday afternoon, the day before Lydia's birthday, while my parents kept the little monkey busy.

I made the cake itself earlier in the day, using a simple Victoria Sponge Cake recipe I found on the Internet. I actually made two cakes and sandwiched them together with a layer of jam and some home-made buttercream, before coating the top and sides of the double-decker cake with more buttercream.

Chris had been to a specialist baking goods shop in Lausanne on Friday and picked up some white, blue and red packs of ready to roll icing. Using my watching mum's advice, we carefully rolled out the white icing and placed it over the top of our cake, then carefully folded the sides down and chopped off the jagged corners.

The making of IgglePiggle

Having made our simple cake, we then took on the task of making IgglePiggle.

This was the toughest part as we were using blue icing instead of marzipan, which is very fiddly to shape without cracking. Eventually, we managed to piece IgglePiggle together on top of the cake, sitting down clutching his red towel. We added some cubes made out of more blue icing and drew Lydia's name onto them (in edible ink).

Finally we rolled out a red ribbon to go around the cake and added a red star with a 2 on the front (Lydia's age), then hid the cake in our room where Lydia's curious eyes wouldn't find it.

The finished cake

When all the guests were gathered in our living room on Sunday, with Lydia - in full princess regalia - sat comfortably on the sofa, we brought the cake round and sang "Joyeux Anniversaire". To my delight, not only did she join in with the song and look happy doing so, but she also recognised IgglePiggle straight away. Phew!

It was great that Lydia liked her cake, and that it looked like what it was supposed to look like. At the end of the party, there was still more than half the cake left over and I hadn't bought any party bags to hand out to the guests, so the cake has formed part of my daily diet ever since.

I think it should be finished by this time next week.

Just for those who don't know who IgglePiggle is, this is him (left) compared to our version (right):

OK, so it isn't perfect, but I'm pretty proud of it!

To Bake, or not to Bake...

...that is the question.

This particular question could reasonably be re-phrased as "to burn the flat down, or not to burn the flat down", given my lack of baking experience and general uselessness in the kitchen.

My past attempts at MasterCheffery have seen me make such gaffs as setting fire to oven gloves, melting a spatula into a wok, and burning rice (complete with actual flames). This coming from someone who's proudest culinary creation is chocolate scrambled eggs, a concoction borne from a fridge with nothing but eggs and chocolate milk whilst backpacking around Australia.
 It's not that I don't want to cook; in fact, I quite enjoy having a go at a new recipe and new techniques, or new foods that I've never cooked before. I'm just not very good at it.

Every now and then I manage to make something edible, and on rarer occasions something quite tasty. Such examples include Gordon Ramsay's Shepherd's Pie, and Jamie Oliver's vegetable stir fry. I also once made a big meal of Indian food back (see Her First Mothers' Day) and cooked Christmas Turkey Dinner (see I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday), so I do get it right sometimes.

The reason I'm thinking about baking is because Lydia's 2nd birthday is coming up this weekend. Last year she was too young to really understand anything about what a birthday actually is, and in fact cried when we brought out the birthday cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. That took some of the gloss off the celebrations, but you can't really expect a 1 year old to be ecstaticly excited about a birthday party.


This year, she is probably still too young to really grasp what all the fuss is about, but hopefully she will be a bit happier on the day. We won't have a big party with 40+ people this time, so she shouldn't be too overwhelmed, and we've been practising singing happy birthday with her for the last few weeks in preparation for the big moment.

Having worked on steeling Lydia's nerve for her birthday celebrations, our thoughts now turn to the centre piece - the birthday cake.

There are a lot of people out there know how to bake, but I am not one of them. My culinary "skills" stretch only to main courses, or occasionally starters, and bakery has never really grabbed my interest. I prefer salty snacks (like crisps and nuts) to sweet treats, but I don't think the candles would stand up properly in a pile of Walkers cheese and onion flavour crisps. A good Shepherd's Pie would probably hold the candles well, but not really appropriate for a child's birthday party.

And so, a cake must be baked, and there's only two people who can do it - me and my wife, Chris.

We've got a general theme for the cake, based on a kids' TV show she likes, but we lack the know-how to actually put it together. I've found what is supposed to be a foolproof sponge cake recipe on the Internet, and I have no doubt that the "foolproof" claim will be strongly put to the test this weekend.

Chris has gone in search of food colouring in the right colours, while I have researched how to decorate a cake. It all looks very complicated, and I honestly have no idea if we will be able to pull this off. The sponge cake base seems straightforward enough, but certain items like self-raising flour don't seem to be available in the Migros supermarket chain here. Chris has substituted this for normal flour and a raising-agent called "levure", which is typically used in baking here. It'll mean adjusting the recipe and keeping our fingers crossed.

It could go either way: it might be a stunning success that we'll look back on in years to come with fond memories, or it might be a complete disaster that results in stomachs being pumped in hospital.

My parents will be flying over tonight so they'll be here for the birthday girl's big weekend, and it'll be their job to keep her busy while we get cracking with the cake.

We will know by tea-time tomorrow if we've been successful or not. Please, everyone out there in Internet-land, keep your fingers crossed for us this weekend.

If all else fails, the local bakery / patisserie is open on Sunday mornings so we do have a backup plan.

Happy 30th Birthday to ME!

The 14th July 1982 was the 193rd anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution. It was also 201 years to the day since Billy the Kid was shot and killed. It was also, and perhaps most importantly, the day I was born in Hertford, England.

The Birthday Boys

Now, 30 years later, I'm married to the love of my life and we have a beautiful daughter, living together in a foreign country and speaking a different language. 10 years ago if you'd told me that would be my future I would have laughed in your face. I really hadn't ever planned to move outside of England, and had no interest in learning French. Just goes to show how much true love can really change your life.

To celebrate the big 3-0 this year, I wanted to have a party. A friend of mine in England, Dave, was born on the same day, and so we decided to have a joint 30th birthday bash. We rented a pub in a village local to where Dave lives (and pretty close to where all our family and friends live), and waited patiently for the big day to arrive.

Lydia's 1st Birthday

A child's 1st birthday is generally a pretty big milestone.

For the parents, it signifies the end of the first full year of being parents. A time to reflect on all the highs and lows they've been through together with their child since the birth. The screams, the laughs, the messy bits and the intriguing process of getting to know your child. A process which, although ultimately rewarding, can also be incredibly frustrating.

Lydia in her birthday
dress

It is only when I look back on the last 12 months of being a father that I truly appreciate the wonder of how quickly a child develops. The tiny, wriggly pink thing that the nurse placed in my arms on the 21st April last year somehow managed to learn how to eat solid food, roll over, sit up and crawl, not to mention smile, laugh, frown and cry in frustration, all by herself. It's amazing to think just how much a baby develops in their first year outside the womb, learning through copying his or her parents or simply by trying things out themselves.

For the child, it's just another day. At this age they do not understand the concept of birthdays or presents, or why people would suddenly fuss over them. They would wake up in the morning and expect to do whatever they would normally do - go to the park, play with their toys, make a mess with their lunch, and so on.

Unbeknownst to the child, the parents often have other ideas, and this was the case for Lydia.