What a mess

Today I spent my afternoon arranging this....

Into this...

Quite a few of the wires in the first picture weren't even connected to anything! It obviously just needed a woman's touch to get everything in order.

Evil cat

After installing a cat flap in the back door so that our beautiful little kitties can go in and out to explore the Great Outdoors, we have unfortunately had to put up with an unwelcome visitor in the house. The visitor is a massive black cat, which would be fine if it just came in and said hello and had a polite conversation... but instead it eats our little cats' food and then attacks them. Three cats in a fight make a horrible din, it's not the most pleasant way to be woken from sleep.

I haven't been able to get a photo of the evil cat, but I found a picture which is a fairly accurate depiction...

Anyway, we've never been able to frighten the cat enough that it stays away, because every time we run after it, it just shoots out the cat flap. Most people tell us we should squirt it with water because that is a sure deterrent for all cats. We however felt that a water pistol just wasn't going to be accurate enough to ensure the cat was suitably scared.

So one night last week, we heard the familiar wailing of our poor little darlings being attacked by the black beast. Colin crept through to the back door and set the cat flat to "in only".

I won't say exactly what we did incase Peta turn up at the door tomorrow shouting animal rights laws at us... but I will say the cat ended up looking something like this:

You would think that treating a cat in this fashion would deter it from coming back... (and believe me, we took no pleasure in doing this, but our little cats are covered in scratches!) ... HOWEVER, who should rear it's ugly head in the house just two days later?! Evil cat!!!

If anyone has any suggestions for ways to stop it from coming in, please let us know. Special cat flaps are no good, as our cats lose their collars within hours of going outside and would therefore be locked out.

Or maybe we should teach our cats some ju jitsu, or assertiveness techniques. Surely two ginger girls could take on this evil black demon?!

Ace of Cakes

I've been very busy on a little project over the past week, preparing a birthday cake for our friend John's birthday party. He's 30 in a couple of weeks time, and we felt there was no point in giving gifts of wine or champagne, as we imagine that's what everyone else is going to give him! So my gift is to make him an awesome birthday cake to mark the occasion! Jess his wife suggested an iPhone 3g cake, as that is John's little obsession.

And here's how I did it....

First, I made two rectangular sponge cakes, and filled the middle with buttercream and jam...

Then I put them together to make an iPhone shape...




Then I covered it in Marzipan.... the whole time trying to fend off Colin from picking at it. (He's a big marzipan fan.)





Then I covered it in black fondant icing - not an easy task with one pair of hands!!

Then I fixed on the little icons which I had made previously out of coloured fondant icing...

And then I finished it off with a little detail and a birthday message. I hope it tastes ok! Although I suppose the novelty of the cake is more the point at a big birthday party. More importantly, I hope John likes it, and that it was worth staining my hands a dusky shade of grey with the food colouring. Note for next time - steal latex gloves from the hospital to protect skin...!