This photo makes me chuckle. The afternoon of my birthday, Tat and I went to the village to get some dinner ingredients and check mail. The pizzaria had a new batch of wood delivered and was closed. I stood snapping photos of the wood and the pigeons who frequent the place. The one pigeon, the blue-grey one standing in the middle lording it over the others, is a regular there. I have photographed him before. The pizzaria owner arrived towards the end of my impromptu photo shoot and asked if he 'could help'. The look he gave me was one of suspicion. I think he suspects underhand dealings. I offered to show him the photos, but he declined to look. I think he was just really weirded out by someone wanting to take photos of a couple of birds and piles of wood.

My birthday was wonderful!! Jorge decided I needed to be woken somewhere between 4 and 5am to be wished happy birthday. He was out when I got up much later. Tat scuttled off to the kitchen to pour coffee and bring me my brioche for breakfast. Brioche here is a sweet bun with glaze over the top. I smelt baking, but wasn't allowed to check. I then sat down at my pc to check mail and blogs. I was overwhelmed.... I still find it hard to believe how many people took time out to wish me a good day, some I haven't heard from in many months. A special thanks to Tat (of course), Picture Perfect (Heather), and Libby, for the very special (I have saved them all) blogs for my birthday. I was laughing and crying all the way through them. You guys are amazing! Then there's the PM's I received and the guestbook notes - I'm still trying to respond to them all! I feel loved *grins*

My day was spent on Skype and in my mailbox with friends calling and mailing to wish me well. I got great news that my friend, Fel was out of hospital and doing a lot better. We joked about her hair falling out, that, luckily, it happened at the hospital, so she didn't have to clean it up. Her husband is the sweetest thing. He's pretty bald himself, but shaved the rest of his hair, so they could both be baldies. I asked Jorge today if he would do that for me. He said, "Sure... in fact, I would do it now!" Dumb question... Jorge loves having little or no hair. We tend to harp at him over his 'convict cut'. He hates curls and has a natural tendency to curls. Daft man.


Supper time came and I was banned from the kitchen. Jorge and Tat went off to do supper.... a kind of mock chicken a la king that we have evolved here. I like it, as it is simple to make, light, and tasty. I did follow them though - with the camera. This is my favourite photo... a rare moment with dad and daughter working together. I took many more photos, mostly humorous, but this one is precious to me. While eating supper, we watched a little 'TV' (old rerun series) on my pc. Tat had bought some Torta Hollandesa for dessert. That stuff is divine. It is a chocolate cookie base, topped with a vanilla cream, which, in turn, is topped with a rich chocolate layer, followed by a single chocolate coated cookie.... rich, sweet, smooth, very satisfying.

In all, I had a wonderful day and I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for the part you all played in it!

Last night, I fell asleep at the keyboard at around 9pm.For those who know me, this is unusual as 2am often finds me still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I had written a long birthday blog for Tatiana, only to hit send and have it vanish. If you don't post within a certain time span here, the page times out. I have just posted a suggestion on MUDS that this time be lengthened. That was frustrating. I fell asleep so early because I was up till 4am the previous night, baking the birthday cake, printing a couple of posters (thank you, my friend) for Tat and cooking pie filling for last night's meal. All the birthday preparations had to be done after Madame went to bed. It doesn't help that she's a night owl too and I virtually had to shove her off to bed in the end.

The day went well. My baby is now 18. Here, she can now legally drive, vote, drink, etc. Her signature is now valid on legal documents. If she were to kill me, she would be tried as an adult (take note, Tat LOL).


We started the day with coffee and cake. I will post a recipe of the cake, as it was really good, a vanilla cake with a brown butter topping - different. Pardon the messy desk here and the bad photo ; ) That is a screen capture from a tiny video.



Not long afterwards, Anne called from Holland (thank goodness for Skype) to wish Tat happy birthday. She is Tat's godmother. Anne is like me. We treasure our conversations in English and with friends, as we don't get that too often. I at least get to speak to Tat and Jorge, but she is on her own up there. She doesn't have communication issues really, but it is nice to speak in a language you're comfortable with. Four hours later and I was hankering for some quality kitchen time. When she hung up to take the dogs out, I dashed to the kitchen for some grub.

I was sitting with a mouthful of bread when the next call came in. It was my cousin from South Africa. She was my childhood playmate before a family feud separated us. We haven't seen or spoken to each other since we were... oh... way under 10 years old. She's a year younger than me. What a wonderful chat we had. There was no loss for words this time. We spoke for ages. The odd thing was that her memories are completely different to mine. I remember the times we spent at their place and she remembers the times they spent at our place. That was so peculiar. We chatted for ages. I learnt, at the same time, that my other cousin, the one I had the first contact with, has cancer, a melanoma. It was a blow. His cancer went into remission for a year and is now back. It's always one thing or another...

I woke up this morning in a 'mood'. I was tired. Somehow, we all managed to just misunderstand each other and snap at each other. I then decided some fresh air was in order. We went to the village to check for mail. Tat and I grumped all the way to the village. The road home was a little different. We didn't take our usual route home. We kept finding little pockets of magic, like the bird in my main photo. We walked and heard this trilling above us. There, in all the razor wire, was this little bird, scarcely bigger than my thumb, singing it's heart out. I have no idea what kind of bird it was. It was shortly joined by another bird. We watched them for a while before moving on. We picked some fresh grass seed for the bird at an overgrown lot and peeked in through the door of a walled off, abandoned old house. She was inspired by the scene to write a short story. Later, walking into the bakery, we heard "It's a kind of magic" by Queen. Yep... it's a kind of magic... if we just stop to look for it.