A superhuman feat

I think it’s fair to say that on Wednesday night, I achieved a superhuman feat. It was tough, mentally and physically, and I very nearly just – gave up.

But in the end, I was triumphant. The human will, it appears, is capable of withstanding more that you would ever think.

Have you ever tried icing a chocolate cake without stuffing any excess into your mouth with a spoon licking your fingers? Then you’ll know where I’m coming from

I hadn’t made any cakes for the café since Christmas but I bumped into the owner last week and he asked for one, a chocolate one, in time for Easter… which meant making this Fudge Icing of Untold Deliciousness (and also of Supreme Unhealthiness)

And as well as virtuously washing the whisk up straight away and resisting the siren song of the scraped-off excess, I even managed to decorate the top with seasonal Cadbury’s Mini Eggs and avoid any of them jumping into my mouth *pats self firmly on the back*

It did make me laugh though when I got an email from the owner of a farm shop near me, also asking for a chocolate cake – which meant I had to show the same restraint last night as well

I didn’t take a picture because it was exactly the same as the one above, except with chocolate buttons decorating instead. And while I was at the shop dropping it off this morning, I spied this little lot, on sale for £2 for the whole box:

What a result.

As was not setting my alarm when I went to bed last night. It had been a knackering week, with a couple of late nights so I was tired – enough that I didn’t wake up till 11.30am! I hadn’t done that for ages but it was lovely

On a more serious note, did anyone see the Samantha Brick article the other day? If you didn’t, it was a feature in the Mail about how she’s struggled in life because of her beauty and how other women hate her for it. People everywhere were talking about it and of course, it attracted more than 5,500 comments on the Mail’s website, as well as countless spin-off pieces and a follow-up in the next day’s paper, in which she said: “my detractors have simply proved my point. Their level of anger only underlines that no one in this world is more reviled than a pretty woman”

But if she’d just written a piece saying: “I’m happy with my looks; I’m beautiful”, I don’t think anyone would have been bothered, other than thinking “good for her” to be self-confident; it’s brilliant to be happy with your looks and she is good-looking. It was the way she blamed her beauty for every perceived slight in her life, from friends dropping her to female bosses turning against her which I think got up people’s noses.

And this is from someone who once wrote a piece about using sex appeal to get ahead, in which she said she’d put friends on the “back-burner” when she was pursuing a man to advance her career… any thoughts?

I’m off to enjoy the sunshine, which has made a surprise return – have a great Easter weekend!