My son immediately got to work. Got me to drive to the specialist cake shop for icing. Got me to pay for it all. Got me to find all the equipment and buy all the other ingredients. Got me to relinquish my kitchen to a creative artist who has no idea about a system or control of mess. Got me to help with the tidying up.

But apart from the above, I take no responsibility for the fabulous outcome. He measured, whisked, poured, timed, rolled, cut out shapes, iced and shaped.

Impressive stuff from an 11 year old and dare I say it – his cake looks better than the one in the picture and what’s more it tasted delicious.

Go on – buy the book – give it to a child and get them to bake a cake for someone who remembers…..it’s only £2.50.

“And they called it Poppy Love” (sorry):-

Here’s the one in the book alongside:-

Other tempting recipes we will no doubt be testing out soon include an 11 0′clock Remembrance Day Victoria Sponge Cake (which this year must be eaten on 11/11/11 at 11:11 precisely:-

Here is the book – you can order it on poppyshop.org.uk and flossiecrums.com

I took my children there yesterday for tea and cake and to get inspired by their plants, which normally means that I buy two or three pretty little pots of pansies in order to recreate the effortlessly stylish image they have and then they somehow look nothing like they’re supposed to when they get home…

There is an amazing restaurant at the back of the greenhouse, which was recently awarded a Michelin Star. Generally you have to book for lunch and it’s not cheap but if you’re just passing then there is a cafe at the back you can just pop in.

I took some quick photos from my phone, just to give you the general idea. Just gorgeous:-

…and thank you to all my lovely African mates who sent cyber gifts of balloons, champagne, hugs and most evocatively a box of African sunshine to be tipped out all over my carpet and rolled in. Could someone please work out how to box sunshine? It would be the most lovely thing.

Anyway, I went to a yoga class and focused on something else for a while and cleaned my house very ineffectively and spoke to my mother and got slightly more reassured by my doctor brother that things were all under control regarding my father and well, fingers crossed and decided that maybe the best thing for the moment is to do nothing regarding court and stress and general unpleasantness and concentrate on more important things and just try to “Keep Calm and Carry On” ….I really don’t think I feel strong enough for a battle.

Kids always have a knack of making you feel better – my 9 year old was doing his homework last night, he said, “OK, mum, I’m going to test you – how many days in the year?” WELL DONE!
“How many weeks in the year?” VERY GOOD!
“OK, well, what about this one then, list the months of the year IN THE CORRECT ORDER”. “OMG mum. You’re good!”.

I was feeling pretty bloody clever there for a minute….

Teenage son was WAY too scared to get the results this morning. He made me do it and then my daughter told him he had done really badly … and he believed her.

In fact, I am today the very proud mother of a very clever son who has done ridiculously well and we are all completely delighted:
6 A*’s
2 A’s
1 B

Not bad eh?

Yesterday he got away with it. We were at the supermarket. He went for the “pull-the-heart-strings” route: “mum, as I didn’t spend the day with you yesterday, I really want to make you something special, can I borrow some money?”. I gave him £4.00. He went off and bought ingredients, butter, eggs etc, but wouldn’t let me see what else. He then totally trashed my kitchen and presented this some time later:-

Is that normal 8 year old boy behaviour? To be able to buy the ingredients, make and decorate a cake without a recipe? I certainly can’t do that.

Anyway. Obviously I was delighted and so was he because he got to eat cake….and it was after our meal, so the other two children were there and the conversation went something like this:

8 year old:

“I love my mum the most because I was the only one who made her a cake”

16 year old:

“well I bought her some chocolates from the shop and that’s much better”

13 year old:

“yeah, but look at your card, all you said was “Happy Mother’s Day” , mine was MUCH deeper, all about her being the best mum in the world and about how much I love her and look, I’ve got 3D writing and 7 more kisses than you AND I bought her more than you”

16 year old:

“yeah, but I drew a smiley face and anyway mum has loved me the longest”

13 year old:

“but she loves me the most because I’m a girl and she much prefers girls”

and so on…until I began to wonder whether any of them would notice if I snuck to the pub for a drink.

PS Note to Anonymous apostrophe police – apologies for all the wrong apostrophes, I just can’t get them right…and arguably anyway, Mother’s Day is correct x