Inspired by Katie, just a reminder that Liverpool is an amazing city, even at times like this. The 'riots' aren't representative of the true nature of scousers and we won't let it mar our name. It hurts to see people make comments about the riots being 'normal' in Liverpool and how all the houses are boarded up and the cars torched anyway so you can't tell the difference between before and after the riots. Why is there such a prejudice against the city? Liverpool is a fantastic place, yes it had it's problems in the past and still has problems now, but the Liverpool that I know is a city full of amazing radicals who are so friendly & helpful. Take for instance our neighbours: they pushed a little 'welcome to the street' card through a few days after we got the keys to our house. You can walk down the street in Liverpool and say 'hello' to someone and not be frowned upon. People were out on Smithdown Road with their brooms helping to clean up after both nights of violence.  This is the Liverpool I love. 

My thoughts go out to all those in Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and London also. Stick together <3 

In the night garden

It was my niece's first birthday on Wednesday and we had a little party for her yesterday. I was on cake making duties (like a good Auntie) and made this In The Night Garden cake. The figures are actually plastic, I wasn't going to attempt making them out of fondant icing! I don't usually work with fondant icing, but I found this very fun. I made maka paka's stones using white fondant icing and mixed in some cocoa powder with it. I didn't mix it all thoroughly because it gave it a great marbley/stone effect. The stones on the path were just cut out using different circle cutters (for the teeny tiny ones I used a straw). It went down really well and I think we managed to get it to serve probably 30 people! The cake was 3 layers so it was huuuuge. 

Other than cake making, we have been busy on the house but also having to take a breather a bit because Scott has been a bit under the weather. Next weekend we are going to Center Parcs though and having a spa session to help destress us! Seriously, owning a house is hard. First we have found damp on the chimney breast as we were scraping the wallpaper off and panicking about how to get that fixed and not blow our budget, then the paint in the guest bedroom wasn't sticking at all and causes loads of bubbles. Woe. But then we discovered that the damp actually wasn't damp, it was just a damp and sticky surface on the plaster but as we scrubbed it down it wasn't damp underneath! It's like a roller-coaster.