This weekend, I turned 33.

I’m a big believer in making the most of birthdays, as anyone who has had to listen to me going on and on about this one will testify. I know some people prefer to ignore them, or at least ignore the fact that they’re getting older, but I like to celebrate. Not just making it through another year – although that is always worthy of cake – but also everything that’s happened over the last twelve months, good and bad.

This year, I’ve been incredibly lucky. The good has far outweighed the bad while I was 32. I signed book contracts with two publishers, we moved to our lovely new house and made great friends here, the daughter started at her fantastic new school and, just last week, we had confirmation that she has a place in the Reception class there from September.

Yep, 32 was a damn good year. Especially since my friends and family were on hand to help me celebrate in style, and usher in 33 with plenty of cake.

The cake started last Thursday, when the daughter and I went round to a friend’s house and I was presented with this:

This was, and I quote, “Just a little something I knocked up this morning.” It won’t surprise you to learn that the friend in question was the same one that made the daughter’s incredible Alice in Wonderland cake for her birthday.

Anyway, three slices later (it was chocolate cake. Incredible, ganache topped chocolate cake.) I was definitely feeling the birthday spirit. Which was just as well, because the cake didn’t end there.

I’d planned a full weekend of celebrations, so on Friday we drove up to Wales to my parents’ house, arriving just in time for a glass of wine and a catch up, before midnight, and the birthday itself, were upon us. Saturday morning I was treated to a smoked salmon and scrambled egg breakfast, along with my presents, before Nain and Pops took the daughter off to the zoo with Uncle Kip and her cousin Robin.

Apparently they had fun:

Essentially, my parents gave me 24 child free hours for my birthday. And boy, did we make the most of them.

The husband and I headed up to Manchester, to visit our very lovely, very dear friends’ Kate and Pete. Since they’ve known us since childhood, they fully understood the importance of The Birthday. And so I was greeted with the most beautiful Coptic-bound notebook, a cup of tea, and an afternoon sipping wine in the garden with other people cooking for me. The husband got to play with fire, which always makes him happy. Even the sun seemed to get the importance of shining for me on my birthday:

Then they took me out to a cocktail bar later that evening, and didn’t complain when I was my normal, boring self and turned down all the exciting drinks in favour of a gin and tonic. They even bowed to my greatest birthday girl wish – to go home around midnight, put our pyjamas on, eat cheese on toast and watch Doctor Who before bed. At which point, they also brought out cake number two – an incredible white chocolate cake, covered in beautifully plump raspberries. It even had candles! Sad to report, there are no photos, mostly because it didn’t last that long.

On Sunday, we had Mexican scrambled eggs and pots and pots of tea, lunch at a lovely local pub, and a small walk around the public gardens next door, before we sadly had to say goodbye.

They did send us home with a present for the daughter, though:

Back at Nain and Pops’s house, we had a delicious Sunday dinner waiting for us – along with yet another cake. The daughter and I took turns blowing out the candles – which required the traditional double singing of Happy Birthday (once normally, once at double speed) – and I made my last birthday wish.

I wished that 33 be every bit as good as 32. Maybe, if I’m incredibly lucky, even a little bit more fantastic…

I didn’t argue with them.

Of course, when you have a small child and your family live hundreds of miles away, getting out to celebrate isn’t always the easiest thing. Fortunately for me, since we moved house I have met some very kind and lovely women, and the daughter has become great friends with their children. And one of them, Karen, was actually foolish enough to offer to take the daughter for the night.

And so started the daughter’s Very First Sleepover.

First there was the preparation. Not just packing, but checking with Karen exactly what she’d need to bring. Not me checking, you understand. The daughter.

“This is my lamb. I have it at bedtime and it plays music. Can I bring it?” Yes.

“This is Teddy and this is Cuddly. Can I bring them?” Yes.

“This is my panda bear onesie. Shall I bring it?” Yes.

Then there was the issue of activities. Karen had promised they could watch a film on their big screen before bed, which led to a whole raft of questions.

“What film are we going to watch?” (Arthur Christmas, even though it’s nearly Easter.) “I don’t like popcorn, though.” (Ice cream was offered instead.) “Can you paint my nails pink? What will we have for dinner? What about breakfast? Where will we sleep?”

She does like to have a plan, that girl.

To be honest, I’m not sure an awful lot of sleeping was actually done. They started out on the floor, moved to separate beds, the same bed, the floor again… and so on. But from the way the daughter refused to stop talking excitedly for 36 hours after her return, I think we can assume it was fun.

In the meantime, the husband and I, along with Uncle Mike and an assortment of friends, actually got to go out, together, and celebrate. (Since, on the day I got The Call, the husband had decided to go climbing instead of celebrate with me, this was a Very Good Thing.)

And, I got cake! The same very talented friend who made the daughter’s magnificent birthday cake, made me a special bookish cake to celebrate. The nice staff at the wine bar cut it up and served it for us.

(The husband, incidentally, ate the tea pot, and turned his tongue blue.)

So, I have now officially celebrated. Now all I have to do is write the second book…

Alice in Wonderland Cake, made by the lovely Georgina

So, it’s been a bit of an exciting week, here at Pembroke Cottage. Firstly, and most importantly, the Daughter turned four, with all the pomp and ceremony you might expect. She’d spent weeks, possibly months, planning the details. She’d chosen the theme – Alice in Wonderland, of course – decided on the invitation design, discussed party games at length, looked at cake sketches, revised and refined the guest list, chosen the perfect Alice outfit and matching headband… everything. She had also become convinced, erroneously, that once she turned four, she’d suddenly be able to whistle. I think this was the only major let down of the big day.

But there were moments when I though the party might not happen at all. Almost all of the party supplies were selected and ordered while I was in a medicated haze earlier in the month. I lost four hours staring at a party website and, afterwards, wasn’t actually able to recount what I’d ordered. And then, the day before her birthday, I got a phone call.

Let’s backtrack a little. Last year, I wrote a new romance that I submitted to Mills and Boon. They liked it, but had some changes they wanted me to make. I met with my very lovely editor at the Festival of Romance in November, and we discussed the plot changes and character tweaks we wanted to include. All of which was fine, except I was committed to another big project at the time, and had to admit I wouldn’t get around to the revisions until the New Year. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem – they wanted to see it whenever it was ready.

So, back to 2013. The other project reached a point where I could take a couple of weeks off, and once I was over the lurgy I got stuck into the revisions for M&B. I was about two thirds of the way through by last Thursday, when they called.

M&B: “How are the revisions going?”

Me, thinking of the teetering stack of scribbled on manuscript pages covering my dining table: “Um, okay. Should be with you by next Wednesday, actually.”

M&B: “Any chance we could have it tomorrow…?”

And so ensued a rather panicked revision. Because I tend to revise on the printed manuscript, with post-it notes, highlighters and red pen on hand, every single change I made had to be typed up. And since I’d written several whole new scenes for this one… it took a while.

But I got it done – somewhere in between roping in friends to take on choir duties, getting a few hours sleep before the Daughter bounced in wanting to open presents, making pink pancakes for breakfast, packing the daughter off to school, opening more presents on her return, food shopping for the party, taking her to a friend’s birthday party, opening more presents with Mum and Dad when they arrived, and collapsing with a glass of wine and chips from the chippie on Friday evening.

I made the husband clean the house for our guests.

And then, I had to put the whole thing out of my mind to focus on the party. Fortunately, my very talented friend, Georgina, had agreed to make the amazing Alice in Wonderland cake you see above, so all I had to do was knock up a few jam tarts, chocolate chip muffins and some rather oddly shaped biscuits. Savory goods were delegated to Dad, the Husband took care of the decorations, Uncle Mike was in charge of keeping all adults in attendance topped up on tea and coffee, and Mum stage managed the party games and treasure hunt for the party bags.

Then, at half past four, we sent all the sugar-high children home, bunged stuff in the bin, and I went and passed out upstairs.

I’d just about recovered by Monday, when my lovely editor called to tell me that Mills and Boon wanted to sign me up for a two book deal.

Obviously, I said yes.

Bake 42 is the cake the husband chose for his birthday cake this year. I always give him free rein of the cookery books for the occasion, and he has a habit of choosing cakes I hate. But this one, actually, I was all in favour of. As, it seems, was every single guest at his birthday party. Let’s just say, this one didn’t last very long at all…

Bake 42: Maple Syrup Cake

From Mary Berry’s Baking Bible

Ingredients

• 225g butter
• 225g light muscovado sugar
• grated rind of 1 orange
• 4 large eggs
• 100ml maple syrup
• 350g self-raising flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 50g chopped pecan nuts

For the filling and topping

• 450ml double cream
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• shredded rind of 1 orange, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease a 20cm deep round tin and line the base
2. Measure all the ingredients for the cake, except the pecan nuts, into a large bowl and beat until blended. Stir in the pecan nuts
3. Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for 1-1/2 hours until well risen, golden and springy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack
4. Make the filling by whipping the cream until it just holds its shape, then folding in the maple syrup
5. Split the cake in half and fill and cover with the cream, smoothing it evenly over the top and sides. decorate the top with the orange rind and keep chilled in the fridge

(I’m still blaming the move for putting me so far behind on everything. What do you think is the limit on that? Maybe in the new year it’ll have to go back to just being my fault again. Shame.)

Anyway, I have ordered cards and wrapping paper, which feels like something of an achievement. I have written the dates for all the daughter’s school activities in my diary and instructed the husband to take the afternoon off for her Christmas play. I have heaved an enormous sigh of relief at the news that I do not have to make her a costume for said Christmas play.

Then I realised that I still have to, you know, buy all the presents and wrap them. And write and post the cards. And decorate the house. And do festive activities with the daughter. And attend Christmas meals and outings – ones that require me to actually dry my hair and wear makeup. And sing in a Christmas concert. And throw a birthday party for the husband’s 35th mid December. And prepare for the trek up to Wales the weekend before Christmas, and find enough clothes to pack to stay through to New Year.

Oh yeah, and I have to ascertain where we will actually be spending Christmas Day…

All of which seemed far too difficult. So I made mince pies, instead.

I wrote about my mother’s mince pies on the blog last year, and since that’s the recipe I always use, I’m just repeating it wholesale. Trust me, they’re the best mince pies in the world. And I don’t even like mince pies.

Bake 41: Mum’s Mince Pies

Ingredients:

• 8 oz plain flour
• 6 oz butter
• 3 oz caster sugar
• 1 egg, separated
• Cold water
• Mincemeat

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C
2. Sieve flour into bowl
3. Add chopped up butter and rub in until like breadcrumbs
4. Add 2 oz of sugar and mix
5. Add egg yolk and water to form dough
6. Split dough in two and roll out half to 1/5 inch thick and cut bases
7. Fit bases to greased tins and fill with mincemeat
8. Roll out other half of dough and cut out lids, dampen edges and seal
9. Pierce centre with sharp knife, brush lids with beaten egg white and sprinkle with remaining sugar
10. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes

The mince pies can be frozen for up to six months, and taste particularly good warm…

I’d picked up some cooking apples after promising to bake the husband and daughter something yummy to keep them entertained while I was away last weekend – something I failed utterly to do in all the chaos of last week. But I made up for it on my return by making this, my newly minted Amazingly Autumnal Apple Cake with Maple Syrup Frosting.

And, since there turned out to be quite a lot of cake, in that way that sometimes happens when I’m not paying proper attention to recipes, many other people have also shared in this autumnal bounty.

A word of warning, though. It’s not the prettiest cake I’ve ever made. But it tastes incredible…

Bake 40: Amazingly Autumnal Apple Cake

Ingredients

• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 50g golden caster sugar
• 140g dark soft brown sugar
• 250ml sunflower oil
• 4 eggs
• 3 unpeeled apples, coarsely grated

For the icing:

• 100g butter, softened
• 50g dark soft brown sugar
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 200g tub soft cheese

Method

• Preheat oven to 150°C and line a deep, round cake tin
• Put flour, mixed spice, bicarb and baking powder in a bowl, then stir in the sugars
• Add the oil, apples and eggs and beat everything together
• Pour into tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool
  on a wire rack
• For the icing, beat all the ingredients together and chill until the mixture is thick but spreadable, then cover cooled cake

Perhaps it’s the new school year thing, or maybe just the way the weather forces us inside more. Or it could be the impending Christmas season, and all the planning it requires.

Although, honestly, it might just be that I tend to have a lot going on in autumn, and suddenly realise that if I want to stand a fighting chance of getting it all done, I need a better organisational system!

Anyway, I like to imagine myself sitting contemplatively in front of a roaring fire, sipping a hot chocolate, while I map out my plans and schemes for the winter in a beautiful leather notebook.

In reality, I’m usually wearing an amusingly furry fleece over my pyjamas and big fuzzy socks, because the heating in our new house is rubbish, swigging wine from a very large glass, and scribbling indecipherable notes to myself in the back of the Boots Christmas catalogue.

Something that’s making the whole ‘To Do’ panic worse this year is that I still haven’t adjusted to the new rhythms of how we live in this new house, and this new town. This new season of our lives, even.

Sometimes it’s the little things that catch me out: the fact we have a washer/dryer, now, rather than separate appliances, or how the postman unerringly delivers the mail – and the inevitable red ‘you were out so now you have to come and get your sack load of parcels from the sorting office’ card – when I’m either taking the daughter to school, or picking her up again.

But there are bigger things too – new friends, for me and for the daughter – and new opportunities to get and out do things, to play and have fun, or to chat over a cup of tea. These are some of the main reasons we moved here, and something I’m enjoying immensely – but I haven’t got used yet to the time it takes out of my day. There’s the fact I don’t have a car most days – rarely a problem, as most things are within walking distance. But it means we walk a lot more (often to the sorting office to pick up the aforementioned sack load of parcels) discovering new playgrounds on the way, and new piles of leaves to jump in. Wonderful things, things that give a new flow to the day. I like the flow, I’m just not quite sure where it goes yet.

And – I know this is really, really obvious, but sometimes I’m a bit slow – living further away means it takes longer to get places. It makes it harder to get together with friends from our old town, but only because I haven’t managed to plan it properly yet. And because I only just found the hoover behind a stack of boxes, and the house isn’t exactly ready for visitors right now!

I know everything will fall into place – we’ve only actually had less than three weeks living in this house – but I’m impatient. I love the new rhythms of our new life, and I want everything else – work, housework, obligations and travel – to slot neatly into place around them. So in the meantime, I’m scribbling my lists of things to be done, and highlighting the calendar so I can’t possibly forget that the daughter has to wear pyjamas to school tomorrow for Children in Need. Hopefully nothing major will slip through the cracks while I’m scrabbling around, trying to get on top of everything. Not least the very many books I’m supposed to be writing, revising or submitting…

One new tradition that’s developed very early in our new house is the Tradition of the Sunday Pudding. We can’t manage it every week, but if we’re all here for Sunday dinner, it’s a must. And it is by far my favourite of our new rhythms, for obvious, pudding related reasons.

It started the day that I unpacked the books. They’re all tucked on shelves in an alcove at the bottom of the stairs and, because the new kitchen is so tiny, the cook books have a shelf all of their own. While I was lugging around cardboard boxes, and trying to clear up after myself, I realised that the daughter had curled up in the alcove, with her I Can Cook book. Shortly afterwards, she appeared, holding the book open at the relevant page, and said, “Mummy, can I make these?”

Obviously the response to any pudding-making related question is usually yes. “Of course,” I said. “Why don’t we make them for pudding on Sunday?”

So that weekend, the daughter and I hunted around the shelves of the new, differently organised, Tesco for the relevant ingredients, and she made Sunday Pudding with, quite honestly, very little help from me!

This week’s pudding was such a success, I felt it qualified as an actual bake. So, here’s Bake 39, courtesy of the daughter, and the BBC book, I Can Cook. I’ll admit, I doubled the recipe from the quantities here, but we did have some left over!

Bake 39: Bread & Butter Surprise

Ingredients:

• 25g soft butter
• 2 slices of day-old bread
• 2 tinned pear halves
• 50g milk chocolate drops
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 25g caster sugar

Method:

• Grease a small-ish oven proof dish
• Butter the dread and cut into triangles
• Cut the tinned pears into bite sized pieces
• Arrange half the bread in a layer to cover the bottom of the dish
• Sprinkle half the chocolate drops over, and then half the pear
• Arrange the rest of the bread on top, the sprinkle with the rest of the chocolate and pear
• Mix the egg, milk and sugar in a jug, then pour over the bread to cover
• Bake for 25-30 minutes at 200°C
• Serve to grateful parents!

Instead of doing any of these things, however, I made this cake to take with us. Because I have Priorities.

When I’d asked the family at large what sort of cake they’d like me to make to bring, the straw poll was split between coffee cake and chocolate cake. So I went with the best of both, with this yummy recipe, more or less exactly from The Great British Bake Off How To Bake book.

I tried to get a photo of the cake, but the best I could manage was a comedy selection of Uncle Mike eating it:

Bake 38: Speckled Mocha Cake

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

• 175g unsalted butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 175g self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp espresso powder, dissolved in 2 tbsp water
• 50g dark chocolate

For the filling:

• 50g dark chocolate
• 1 tbsp espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tbsp water
• 50 unsalted butter
• 100g icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until really creamy, then gradually beat in the sugar, until pale and fluffy
3. Beat the eggs then gradually add to the butter and sugar, beating well after every addition
4. Sift the flower and baking powder into the bowl and fold in with a spoon, followed by the coffee
5. Grate in the chocolate and mix gently
6. Divide the mixture evenly between two greased and lined sandwich tins and bake for 20-25 minutes
7. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack
8. To make the filling, chop the chocolate roughly and put in a heatproof bowl with the coffee
9. Set over a pan of steaming hot water and leave to melt
10. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir, then add the butter and icing sugar
11. Beat until smooth, then leave to firm up until it’s ready to spread
12. Sandwich the sponges together with the filling, and dust with icing sugar to serve

We spent October half term deep in the depths of Sherwood Forest with 22 of our nearest and dearest, where I got to: indulge my inner Maid Marion by picking up a crossbow (and being great at it, thank you), eat pancakes and fajitas and many, many other yummy things, go bowling for the first time in a decade, relax in the spa, kick through leaves wearing an amusing bobble hat, and generally have a wonderful time.

We also had a Halloween party, where three small witches (the daughter and her cousins) ran shrieking around the villa devouring chocolate for several hours.

At one point, we actually got them to all stand still at the same time:

Although not face the camera, obviously.

Usually, the end of a holiday is a bit depressing. But not for us! Because we were heading off to a Very Important Wedding, and spending the weekend with some of our dearest friends.

I’d share more photos, but most of them appear to involve people wearing a bright pink hat at a rakish angle, some time after the band packed up and went home…

When I did finally tear myself away from the party and made it to my hotel room, I found the most beautiful bouquet of flowers from the bride and groom, as an anniversary present. Clearly, the first weekend in November is the only one to get married on.

Back home, it was back to school yesterday and, of course, Bonfire Night! I’m not usually a fan of loud noises, but I do have a fondness for fireworks. Since we were all tired, we decided to just a have a few small, quiet fireworks in the back garden.

Of course, the husband then came home with a huge box of assorted fireworks and a packet of rockets.

The daughter sat through them with her bunny mitten hands clamped firmly over her ears, and decided she liked the sparklers best. As do I.

But now it’s back to work. I’ve got a lot coming up in these last six or seven weeks before Christmas – not least, attending the Festival of Romance in Bedford as a VIP author later this month. Expect much posting about that, and if you’re planning on being there, please grab me and say hi! I’ll be the one with the teapot earrings…

I’m also woefully behind with my 52 bake challenge, but I’m hoping the season of Christmas baking will help me catch up. In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of the Speckled Mocha Cake I made to take on holiday, as being enjoyed by my brother, Uncle Mike, who also valiantly shared a room with the daughter for the week, and so had earned all the cake.

I’ll post the recipe on Friday, in an attempt to get back onto some sort of blogging schedule! In the meantime… revisions. Wish me luck!

Not my house. Photo by Robert Neff.

We moved! Finally.

We’ve been in the new house a week now, and had pancakes for breakfast for the first time here today, which means it’s officially home. And now I’ve unpacked the books, and made a path through the boxes to my desk in the study, it’s all starting to feel nice and cozy.

Of course, we’re going away for the week on Monday, but hey, at least we’ll be coming back to the new house, not the old one, which was by no means a sure thing even a month ago!

The move was about as stressful as these things always are. The daughter, thankfully, fell in love with Disney’s Alice in Wonderland a week before the big day, so was reasonably easily entertained for the duration! She loves her new room, and has already dropped a paintbrush on the lounge carpet, so it really is just like the old house.

She’s also made lots of new friends at nursery school, although the husband was a little alarmed to hear about the two little boys vying for her affections.

“They both kept trying to hug me and hold my hands, Daddy,” she said. “But I just wanted to go running.”

“You just keep running, sweetheart,” the husband replied.

The writing schedule got a little hectic right around move time too, which has me tied to my keyboard at the moment, feeling guilty even about pausing to write a blog post – which is another reason I’ve been so scarce around here. And with being on holiday next week, there might be a little wait for updates again.

So, in the meantime, here’s my breakfast pancakes recipe. I’m not sure I can legitimately call it a bake, but I’m running out of year, so I’m counting this as number 37.

Bake 37: Breakfast Pancakes

Ingredients

• 135g plain flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2tbsp caster sugar
• 130ml milk
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• Maple syrup to serve

Method

1. Sift dry ingredients together, and mix wet ingredients in a separate jug
2. Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients to make a smooth batter, and let stand for a couple of minutes
3. Melt a knob of butter in a non stick pan and add a ladle of batter
4. Flip when the top of the pancake starts ti bubble, and cook until both sides are golden brown
5. Repeat with the rest of the batter.