It's a Miracle

Dear Cathy

It's a Miracle you managed to get any baking done you sounded so over-excited in your last post. I have been a huge Barry Fan ever since mother introduced me to 'Manilow Magic' some years ago, and even now I still adore him. I do wish I'd been with you! Did you manage to get backstage?

Last weekend was little Latte's birthday and I've never had such a ghastly group of children in the house. I was sure there was going to be an accident but everyone went home unscathed at two o'clock. 'Looks like we made it' I exclaimed to Mr Latte, only for little Latte number two, to injure her ankle on the trampoline a nano-second later. Mr Latte took the damaged child off to A&E and I asked him to keep me posted via text. He was gone for ages and all the time I was waiting for an update. Finally, she came home - on crutches! Little Latte was holding up very well. She told me all about the lovely nurse called Mandy who plastered her up. 'I wish you'd been there though mummy' she continued, 'I can't smile without you'. It will be a while before she's ready to take a chance again on the trampoline - if I don't burnt it to cinders first that is. We put the children to bed and unfortunately, somewhere in the night Little Latte became quite melancholic. By daybreak however, she had recovered and was looking forward to showing the plaster to her friends at school. Apparently she has to keep flexing her muscles and wiggling her toes. When I asked her what she was doing she said she was trying to get the feeling again. She can't run around in this lovely sunshine so she's spending a lot of time with her leg raised listening to beautiful music - like Barry Manilow!

Anyway, party picture attached - chocolate cake - obviously!



This one's for you, love Lucy.

PS I am slightly miffed that you haven't asked me about my new job - do you even read my letters or are you too busy at the Copacabana to bother?

Baztastic!

Dearest Lucy, I must tell you about my FABULOUS night out last night: Mr Chino, and I travelled to Manchester with a couple of friends to see the rather marvellous Barry Manilow! What a night! Mr Chino was entirely sceptical about the whole thing, not manly enough for him, I fear, and bemoaned his lot the entire journey south. He was able to sympathise with the wife of the couple we went with, as she had bought the tickets as a surprise gift for her husband; both he and I were giddy with excitement and burst into impromptu renditions of "Bermuda Triangle" at the slightest provocation!
We arrived at the Arena after having had our tea at the 'Blue Diamond' chinese restaurant in Rochdale (should you ever be in those parts, let me recommend the Satay Chicken, Mongolian Style - delicious!) and quickly found our seats high up in block 204. We had a good view of the stage, I'm pleased to say, and any action was shown on two large screens on either side; the warm up act was a comedian (I use that term loosely) but he wasn't on for too long, thankfully. Anyway, with glow sticks firmly in hand the excitement grew and I was all of a dither when the legend, that is Barry, came on to the stage. No sooner had the opening bars of "It's a miracle" been played, than Mr Chino was waving his glow stick in the air and singing along; he was even on his feet and dancing when, later in the set, 'Copacabana' was played! I must confess that Mr Manilow is not a natural dancer and that anything above his lips failed to move all night, but he knows how to belt out a tune, doesn't take himself too seriously and puts on one heck of a show. I can thoroughly recommend him for a good night out.
Basking in the after-concert glow we wended our way northwards and home, the haunting strains of "One voice" ringing in our ears. It was a night of musical magic and, for one night only Mr Chino had become a Fanilow! Alas, he soon returned to his normal gruff and crusty self, almost as if he and Barry had never shared the love, and I fear that tomorrow morning he will deny all knowledge of our shared experience. Never mind, I will always have the vision of his smiling face by the light of a thousand glow sticks as we sang "Mandy" together...
On the baking front, I've had chocolate muffins coming out of my ears having baked for my Year 11 leavers and number 1 Chino child's post Year 6 SATs celebration: 56 muffins in two days! I did try making a Chocolate Fudge topping to decorate them with, which was very well received, although, as usual, it all looked a bit rustic.
I'm hoping that your life is ticking along nicely. Do let me know all your latest news. Have you seen Margo lately?

Much love,

Cathy x

England 1 - Germany 0

Dear Lucy,
Fancy that! We have made a Herman the German friendship cake, too! It was a bit of a faff, stirring etc over the 10 days, I agree. But what I found most difficult, was trying to find three other people to take the cake off my hands after 10 days; the north East of England seemed to have suffered an invasion of German cakes!
Tell your little Lattes that a much nicer, and quicker, alternative is the Apple Scone Round in our baking bible. Yum.
Will write again, soon.
Much love,
Cathy x

Herman the German

Dear Cathy

How lovely to hear that you and Sally met up over Easter. Margo and I also found time to see each other and we went on a trip to the Theatre Grand, Wolverhampton, to see the spooky Derren Brown. I must confess I have quite a crush on Derren, which is odd, because I understand he's gay. I was desperate to be picked out from the crowd and ushered onto the stage and waved my arms in the air shouting 'pick me, pick me' at every opportunity. Part way through the show Derren asked a volunteer to pick someone from the audience to help on stage. 'Pick anyone you like' he said, 'but don't pick anyone who is waving their hands in the air shouting "pick me, pick me" because they're always a ****ing nightmare'. Typical!

Now I must tell you about Herman the German. A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would like to bake a Friendship Cake. I had no idea what a friendship cake was so I said 'yes please'! The next day I was handed a small tub with some slimey gloop in the bottom and a set of instructions. The first thing to do was to decant the gloop into a large mixing bowl and cover with a clean tea towel. When I opened the tub to scrape out the contents with my spatula I nearly fainted as the gloop looked and smelt rather unpleasant. (Did you ever see that film called 'The Blob'?)

Nevertheless, I persevered, stirring the mixture every day and adding ingredients as required. Each day, the mixture bubbled and fizzed, and grew in volume. It was quite a relief to stir it as this knocked all the air out and seemed to calm it down a bit. Ten days later the mixture was four times the size and ready to bake. It still looked and smelt unpleasant despite the vast amount of sugar that had gone into it. I baked the enormous cake and do you know, it was surprisingly mediocre.

It's a bit like a cakey apple strudel but not really worth ten days of effort in my humble opinion. In fact, right at the start of the process, when I told the little Lattes we were going to make a special cake that would take ten days, they asked 'Why don't we make an ordinary cake and then we can eat it today?". They've got a point, but if you'd like to know more take a look at:

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/

Love Lucy x

PS Did I tell you I've got myself a little job fannying around with press releases for a few hours a week?