Post 563: Cake baking underway which means it’s nearly time…
…to buy presents and finalise who going to be sitting at our kitchen table to be stuffed at our Christmas Dinner.
Big Sis and Bro-in-law have agreed to come and celebrate with us the first Christmas with the Baba and as we have no idea where the new parents will be arm so we will give them space to do their own thing.
But they’d like a Christmas cake as would our other son, the eldest who doesn’t like lemons (hence, he has a special no-lemon cake) which always gives us extra fuss remembering which one it is. Ha ha.
Five is the total number of cakes and we were lucky enough to not have any other people allergies or preferences to deal with.
So this morning I started the ball rolling by cutting up 5 sets of greaseproof paper liners for the cake tins and I put the buttered liners in one of them by which time my back was aching and my Darling was back from shopping in town for all the ingredients for all the cakes.
It’s a great big stack of ingredients we had once the shopping bags were emptied, which then take my Darling ages to sort in just one bowl for one cake.
By the time I had made a relaxing cuppa for the staff, she applied an industrial method to get all the separate ingredients for one cake in a bowl and then a second one and so on.
Then the great but ancient Kenwood Chef (from the seventies handed down from mother to son) was found and placed front and center for the final
Mix of all the nuts, fruit, spices, flour and butter to stir into the sticky brown mixture.
The oven was pre warmed and set at a stupidly low 120 degrees and the first tin full of Christmas mix was shoved into the fiery furnace for 4:10 hrs/mins before it taken out and rested while the second mix without lemon was stirred up and spooned into another greased and lined tin for another 4:10 hrs until that was fully baked. The two cakes was all that my Darling had time for today so the kitchen was closed till tomorrow when I need to line more tins before she gets up and starts up the baking for a second day of Christmas cheer and industry.
The smells in the house are unbelievably good and for me one of the musts not to miss on the lead up to the big day. Like the mince pies I love so much, cold or hot which I gobble up with the same gusto.
What a good start to preparations and in the morning I’ll pour some brandy on the cooled cakes and wrap them up for six weeks in foil and clingfilm, stowed away where they can mature a little.
By the time the washing up was done and my Darling had exhausted herself doing something she loved doing she collapsed into the big blue sofa and we watched a few episodes of KDrama to ease the mind and soul before heading off to bed happy in the knowledge that there’s a couple of sons dealt with.
Brilliant.
After a long while as I mentioned last week, that I haven’t cried over something that normally wouldn’t worry me, this morning I was having a chat with our eldest who was calling before heading out to Northumberland to meet his in-laws (for a visit to a National Trust property), so he didn’t have long with me but while we were talking I completely broke down and cried a while before composing myself again.
The thing was that I’d touched a nerve and I will have to bring this up tomorrow at my counselling. The issue was about my increasing physical weakness in my body giving everyone around me more work. This impacts my Darling the most and this what causes me grief.
I know what you’ll say about this but I still can’t help feeling bad about leaving the best part of the everyday activities I used to do, especially lifting things like a shopping bag. It is not everything yet but I guess it will be sooner or later. It makes me feel impotent, emasculated too I suppose.
Yesterday, while chatting to my son those feeling of burdening my Darling was at the top of my mind. Not being able to do simple things, being incapable of many things that are annoying, frustrating and tiring my Darling. It’s all too much sometimes.
Yes, I know, I need to talk to her about it but she’ll understand totally where I’m coming from and I will not feel any better.
Oh well.
I’ll find out what the counsellor says, and hopefully move on from this and back on to pain and suffering of another kind.
I hope to hear something about the Radium 223 this week. That will distract me and I have the baba to look forward to as well.
So I’m just a bit flakey today.
Good luck
Take care xx
