Thou Shalt Always Eat Birthday Cake!

Easter Holidays. I am standing outside my front door saying goodbye to Marlyse our family friend, neighbour and loyal (unpaid) dog walker. Marlyse is in her late seventies and needs the exercise and Molly, the same age in dog years, appreciates the slow steady pace. I am still in my yoga clothes with greasy hair. Along comes Inger my friend and neighbour from the top of the village looking all shiny and glamorous in her work clothes walking Rosie her dog – a slightly younger and more sprightlier version of Molly. Today Inger organised a trade conference for global delegates whilst I took a yoga class with my girls, hiked in the woods and made cheesecake with Lexi for her birthday tomorrow. We are both mothers of three children. We both choose to do what we are doing. Inger battles the stress of not always being there and crazy weekends catching up and I battle the undervalued status of a stay at home mum and when the writing commissions are scarce, that nagging feeling of underachieving.  Neither of us has got it wrong.

This is the second birthday cake.  The first, a Victoria Sponge filled with raspberry jam and cream and covered in something unspeakable from the temple of E numbers, the American shop down by the lake, was made for the cowgirl sleep-over party held on Saturday night – burgers, line dancing and the Horse Whisperer.  The cheesecake is for tomorrow her actual birthday (Lexi milks everything she can out of any situation).

Did you know that there are no calories in birthday cake and that it is incredibly bad luck to refuse a slice?   Once when Ollie was around 12 we took him to dinner and bumped into some friends who ended up eating with us. These friends are gourmets and love nothing more than a trip to Alba during truffle season. Everything was going beautifully until Ollie’s birthday cake arrived – a Mille Feuille which I had admittedly picked up at the supermarket earlier as it is too laborious to make.  It didn’t look amazing but it had candles on it and he loved it and when he, in a very grown up manner, offered our friends a slice and they said,

 ”Non, merci”

I could have walloped them. Yes, they are empty calories, yes it is a crap cake from a supermarket and it will take a week to digest but it’s his birthday for Pete’s sake.  I like this couple, they are good friends but that memory always plays in my mind whenever I think of them.

So remember the eleventh commandment: Thou Shalt Always Eat Birthday Cake.