What a week!

My children were excited to get their first vote in a national election.

They found it a bit confusing that we had to vote for an unknown local MP instead of who they wanted in 10 Downing Street.

We were the only ones in our local polling station.Luckily for Tasmin she wasn’t voting at Sheffield Hallam where she goes to University ,it may have been a different story.But then she wouldn’t have left it to the last minute to vote like hundreds did.

I awoke the next day to the news that we have no one in power.GREAT!

Sadly the tulips are starting to coming to an end,but our lilac tree is looking magnificent.I couldn’t resist picking some of the garden flowers to bring into the house.But sadly they only last a day.

The new lawn is loving the weather.Its been showery,cold/warm,bright/cloudy and everything in between.Its grown so much Hubby hopes to cut it this week.He’ll be in heaven as cutting the lawn is his ultimate pleasure!

I have been struggling this week to walk.I have a case of excruciating sciatica.Nothing seems to relive it.I resorted to sleeping tablets one night,but was promptly woken at 6am by a police car with full sirens –which was nice.

As a treat I had arranged for us to go to Westfield shopping centre in London.I was hoping to find something for my sons and my birthday.But the pain was sooooooo bad I struggled to walk and Hubby pointed out he wasn’t having much fun,so we made a hasty return to the car and home.I have now resorted to wearing a magnet in my knickers after reading on the internet this could help.I am in that much pain I’ll try anything!

For my Sons 23rd birthday today I grimaced through the pain to make him a Red Velvet birthday cake with a white chocolate cream cheese topping.People who frequent cupcake shops like I do .Will know this is the most popular cupcake “flavour.”

Now making  cakes in an Aga is not easy.You have no control over the ovens temperature ,so cooking is a bit of a juggling act.The recipe said that each layer would take 25 minutes to cook.Mine took 50 minutes!!!

I was going to make a tall Red Velvet cake but another 50 minutes waiting for the next two layers would have been too much for my sciatica.I decided the cake was already large enough and made the rest of the mixture into cupcakes.

Unfortunately I had left my camera bag and lenses in my friend Hilary's car.So the majority of the photos I took are shaky as I had the wrong lens for indoors.

I had bought the sparkling candles especially for the cake but decided  to add some candles I had never got around to using. They were not  really appropriate for a 23 yr old but it looked cute.

Ryan had a lot of trouble blowing out the candles as they kept relighting!Plus they were sparking all over the place.

The cake was not as red as I would have liked.(Even though the recipe calls for a whole bottle of red food colouring!)

The twins were nearly bouncing off the walls from all the sugar and food colouring.

Here's a peak at some of the flower brooches I have been making.

I am still experimenting with different techniques.I am hoping to get a day free soon to dedicated some time to making some more.

Here's two of my favourites I wore on my cardigan for Ryan's birthday.

In the  rest of the photos I look old,tired and “inflated” .All of which of course I am,but its not nice to see the evidence.I have been very good in the last two weeks and have lost 3 1/2 pounds,but it looked from the photos as if I have a long way to go.

Oh well,back to the Red Velvet cake  in the fridge.Something tells me my weigh-in this week won’t be very successful!