WEDDING COUNTDOWN: Day 1

To pre-empt any questions: it is this Saturday, at 5pm, in Montreal at the bottom of the mountain.

In other news, the following cakes (links provided where I have been able to find them on the internets) have been baked and are ready for action, nestling in their icy beds, waiting for me to meld their glazes, whip their ganache into shape and glue their soft receiving folds together:

Lemon and lavender (Bundt)
Sour cream and chocolate (Bundt)
Carrot, ginger, orange (Bundt)
Coffee and walnut (yer classic English style cake)
Apple, maple and olive oil (Ottolenghi recipe and truly extraordinary)
Chocolate cake (with ganache not buttercream)

This will give me ample opportunity to apply the "cake topper" (see below with your eyes) that came to me on an aeroplane last night.  But ... what is this? Another cake topper*, given by a friend? Sweet Heavens! Whatever next?! (Please note the exquisite detail of the tiny cake topper on the tiny cake on the tiny cake topper.)

* A truly appalling expression, but I cannot find another.

WEDDING COUNTDOWN: Day 1

"If you can't beat them, join them", as taxi driver philosophers say, squinting as they draw on a roll-up. I cannot beat 'them', whoever they are, as I am not sure what the competition is, but I will join the massed ranks of those who are to be married and who are - to a greater or lesser extent - preoccupied by their forthcoming nuptials.


I will start the day-by-day countdown with some exciting news. Regular readers may be aware of the magnificent drawing that was a gift from Mr Dave Shelton, and that then ended up on our 'wedding invitation'. 


 But no reader is yet aware of the sugarcraft genius that is this statuette (the expression "cake topper" does not do it justice), based on the original drawing, and made entirely of icing sugar and edible paint.  Made by Monkeymother's friend Claire, it is a miracle of modern craftsmanship, and I encourage you to look at it carefully wondering, as you do, at the detail of the leaves and the REAL tassel hanging from my fez. 


BEFORE:

AFTER:

Incroyable, mais vrai.

I complete my delicious wedding cake

And I am sure you will agree it looks dee-licious. 

In other news, the last week of work before I leave for two weeks to get married, become 40 years old, etc etc, has passed in a blur of anxiety-ridden late nights, emergency trips to the doctor and 2am gnawing on Benadryl.


A trip to Ottawa to talk to some people about chickens was roughly cut short when my lips (for the third time in 10 days) started to swell, joined by a little light swelling and tingling on the roof of my mouth and tip of my tongue.  I looked almost exactly like this:

Not a welcome early wedding present, particularly when joined by a light sprinkling of eczema on my chin and in my ears, but still, regular sucking on some cortisone pills and a light smearing of Vaseline seems to have kept the monster at bay.  


We think it is an allergy; to what we cannot say, and the last time I had patch tests - involving 80 metal pads strapped to my back with gaffer tape for a week - the results came back with a resoundingly helpful "atopic!", from Dr Cream (who does, I am happy to tell you, does actually exist), so I am not holding my breath.


Still, there is much to look forward to, not least the decision about which song we shall make an 'entrance' to in a comedy style ("and now ... the BRIDE AND GROOM!", as we trip and fall down the ornamental staircase).


Pip (swollen) pip!

I welcome you to my adopted land

I have too much to report

Yes friends: the days pass, and with them, my sanity.

Still, there is much to look forward to, and much to dwell upon, not least: what was I doing last Friday in a fur coat, "Canada 2010" woolly hat, a belt like that of the bonhomme, and a drinking stick (also featuring the head of the Bonhomme) full of Caribou?.

I will tell you what I was doing. I was embracing a French Canadian tradition of earning the beer money for my own surprise "bachelorette party" by dancing, singing Alouette, selling maple cookies for a dollar and eating le meilleur chien chaud in the world. We made $90, my friends and I, and I must salute the kindness of:

The many Canadians who gave me $5 without flinching and gave their sincere congratulations;
The man from Rhode Island who gave me $20;
The (many) people who gave me a $1 and refused to take a cookie;
The person who lent me a fur coat;
The people who lent me shin pads, a helmet, and a Canadiens jumper;
The six people who let us take their photograph;

And the dear friends I work with, who dressed me up in a Canadiens hockey outfit and made me save goals in the lift doors; who made me a sash with "Quebec Bride-to-Be"; who carried music down the street and made me dance in Phillips Square; who made an astonishing THING that I shall reveal in the coming days and who made me do things I would never have done in Blighty.

Canada is OK!!! Canadians are nice and know about irony and all that, but what is really great about them is they are not cynical the whole time like Britishers are and think it is OK to be (for e.g.) joyful and dancing on corners with your friends.

Come on England! Lay aside your cynicism. Do not sneer at people being happy in the street; smile with them and have a jig and buy them a drink! And come to French Canada, where no-one cares if you can dance or not, as long as you are amusing yourself.

Pip pip!