2014.09.22

Today is my 88th birthday. Inside I don't feel much different from the way I felt when I was 18, or 48, or yesterday. Outside it's a different matter. 

We celebrated yesterday. David came from Kingston late on the evening before and yesterday he spent much of the morning making a chocolate cake.  I took photos on my iPad and I'll add one to this post if I can figure out how to get it from the iPad to the iMac; David took several photos on his iPhone and I'll post a couple here. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of all the family.

David made the chocolate cake according to a recipe that Wendy got from her Mum, who got it from her neighbour, an old lady called Mrs Searle; this recipe is probably over 150 years old, a fact reflected in quaint measurements like a "heaped coffee cup". I suppose this is one of those little New Zealand size coffee cups. David created his own special icing. I can't find this recipe in any of Wendy's remaining recipe books, so it's presumably only in the little school notebook of hand-written recipes that David took home with him after Wendy died.  

 Mrs Searle's chocolate cake recipe
  (Wendy's hand-written copy in David's
    cook-book)

The cake on the table while I read Rebecca and Richard's card