Lucy's Blog

So - riled by the DIY wedding cake doubters and inspired by Tunya's attempts at the swiss butter-cream icing... we decided to give this wedding cake business a go.  Seriously - it isn't THAT hard.

There are tricks (which I found online)...

1. use a reasonably solid cake so it stays together.

2. use drinking straws to keep everything together and to prevent layers from toppling.  We found super long, super strong 'party straws' designed to entertain children and they are perfect for this purpose.

3. brush melted apricot jam over the cake to stop the crumbs from messing up the butter-cream.

We made 2 test cakes in a fun afternoon - we cheated and used packet cake-mix because we were most interested in trying out the icing options and I still think getting the cake itself made would be smart and simple.

BUT the butter-cream icing is easy.  We had to double check the measurements (the original recipe is from the US and an American 'stick' of butter is 130g, but a UK 'stick' of butter is 250g etc).

Considering the cakes we started with were as wonky as they come, I am pretty sure that if we get some pre-made cakes from a cake shop or bakery, which may be a little more symmetrical, and flowers from the florist for decoration, it should be fairly straight forward to whack our meringue-like butter cream on and to get a reasonable finish (I like the rustic not-quite perfectly straight icing look with fresh flowers).  As long as we make tonnes of the icing, it goes on about an inch thick (like Pavlova, but with a cake in the middle) and looks wedding-like.  We filled our cakes with strawberries and butter-cream and jam... just to add to the complete sugar overload - but I am sure we could do something a little different.

We tried the meringue butter cream, and traditional hard icing, just as an experiment.  I like the way the meringue butter cream looks - and it was a lot easier than messing about with rolling the traditional icing (we were bored by the time we got to the traditional icing, so we didn't do a brilliant job).  You need to put frosting under the hard icing, anyway - or the cake tastes too dry. 

The real cake will be bigger, by the way.  And it will have two tiers.  These were just baby test-sized versions. 

All two days of it.

Thank goodness we went to Swanage!

When I was growing up, I really wanted to live somewhere really remote.  We lived in Darwin - and it didn't feel remote.  It was a 'city' of sorts.  Well... it was a town, really - but it had shopping centers and dozens of schools, mains electricity, running water, swimming pools and an airport.  Some of my favorite books were stories like We of the Never Never - which told of the struggle of living in truly remote places.  The Flying Doctors also made outback life look terribly glamorous: conducive to self-reliance, ingenuity, drama and occasional romance.

Our  high school offered boarding - so lots of the kids in our classes came from places like Groote Eyelandt, the Tiwi Islands, Daly River and the NT/Queensland border.  They had to fly in at the beginning of each term on charter flights - and if it had been raining particularly heavily and airstrips were closed, sometimes they wouldn't make it in until weeks after the town kids.  Kids whose parents worked on mines had their boarding paid for by the mining company, and kids who lived more than two hours from the nearest school, or where roads were impassable for more than 3 months a year, had their boarding paid for by the NT Government.  I was so jealous.  I once sat down and worked out that if we declared that our primary residence was the back (swampy) corner of our hobby block, and measured the road the long way around, I might JUST qualify for free boarding.  Sadly, my mum wouldn't go for it - so I stayed a day student for most of my high-school career (although I did spend a semester boarding when my mum was in hospital in Melbourne).

ANYWAY the point is that old age has sobered me up.  When it came time for me to go to uni, I really did have to leave Darwin.  The local university didn't offer the courses I wanted, and the university that did was 2,000km away in Adelaide.  It was heart breaking.  It was cold.  A lot of my friends stayed in Darwin - and my heart ached every time I had to leave people who knew and cared about me to be a broke, anonymous student in a city full of strangers.  Once I'd finished my undergraduate degree, it was time for honours, and once I'd done honours, it was a PhD in another city, and once I'd done a PhD, it was a job in the UK.  All a million miles from my mum and dad and 'home'.  And I don't think I am less homesick now than I was when I was 17.  Ok... perhaps I'm a little bit less homesick... but on rainy English days when I'm stuck on the tube trying not to breathe in flu germs I have serious doubts about whether I have made the best choices in life.

Now, being 'remote' seems like a passport to a lifetime of hard decisions and sacrifices.  Growing up remote means always feeling a little bit sad and a little bit guilty for not giving up an education or a career to be where the people and the places you love are.   Or giving them up, and wondering whether you made the right choice.  For parents, it means watching your kids moving away when they really are still babies.  It means being away from your family and your home and in strange cities if people get sick and your local hospital or health center doesn't have an MRI scanner or the specialists you need.  It means not having decent Internet connections and paying a fortune to an airline every time you have to go 'south'.  Of course, there are up-sides.  People tend to live in remote places because they love them.  And being forced to travel and to step outside your comfort zone means that it (eventually) becomes second nature.  There is much less chance you'll wake up at fifty and think 'oh - I always wanted to travel, but somehow I never quite made it out of the city where I was born.'

Now when I think about the boarders in my high-school class, I wonder whether it was even harder for them to leave their families to come to school. Perhaps I'm just a wimp.

And I also think that the 21st century has, in some ways, made everyone remote.  Jobs are advertised globally.  We stay in contact with friends who have moved to the other side of the planet.  We commute virtually and work digitally.  Global businesses expect staff to be willing to travel.  It is possible to do more and to compete with the best in the world, not just the best in your town.  It takes a very conscious decision to step back and say 'yes, this is an amazing opportunity - but no, thank you.' 

So - we are starting to feel old.  I am, anyway.  We have spent years desperately wanting Australia to get rid of John Howard.  My final few years in high school stood out because I had teachers who cried in frustration over the Liberal victory.  I car-pooled to school listening to Triple J ripping into Pauline Hanson.  And had earnest discussions about whether a tragic plane crash that involved Phillip Ruddock, Amanda Vandstone and Alexander Downer would solve the nation's problems.  When I was allowed to vote, it was with a sense of doom and frustration... no one seemed to be listening and the Liberals got back in, anyway. John Howard definitely wasn't listening when everyone we knew (including us) marched and demanded that Australia shouldn't be involved in the Iraq war.  No one seemed to be listening to the family of David Hicks, or to the people who pointed out the fundamental injustices of detention centers. 

And then, one day - when I was out of the country and not organised enough to cast a postal vote - the governement changed!  And today... we woke up and looked at the BBC and the new government is getting rid of detention centers and the Pacific Solution.  

Its a very odd feeling.  I definitely can't say that my vote made the difference in this election.  And, obviously, it wasn't my whining or writing to newspapers or phoning talk-back radio that did the trick.  Maybe it is just that pendulum phenomenon everyone is always on about. 

But if the pendulum will swing when it swings, whether I have an opinion or not, was I just wasting my breath? 

Hmmm....

Yep.  We really do move house a lot.  It is getting a bit ridiculous - but I am also starting to get used to it.  In some ways its a good thing.  We meet new people, and get to sort of 'spy' on life in different places.  We've lived with the super-rich in Sanbanks (or at least shared a local bar with them) and the determinedly conservative middle class in semi-detached houses in suburban London.  And we've been in dodgy flats and nice flats, with lovely neighbors and some complete nut-cases.  Next, it looks like we will be moving back into London.  This time the North-East, inner London, rather than the North-West, Zone 5.  We went to look at a flat yesterday.  It looked like a complete bargain online... a lovely new kitchen, a small, but very nice bathroom, clean, freshly painted, lots of light... all for just 160 pounds a week (plus council tax etc.)  On the map it was pretty close to my office.  So far, so good.  We are periodically committed to saving whenever we get the chance - so we can buy our own house.  We waver on this.  Sometimes we decide that we are being ridiculous and just need to accept that some costs are fixed, and we should live in a nice place and not be so greedy. 

So, when we got to our 'bargain' flat, we realised that, of course, nothing is ever that perfect.  It is on a super busy main road, next to a petrol station in an area that seemed to made up of housing estate after housing estate after housing estate.  High density housing for people on low incomes.  My inkling that it was a recipe for trouble was confirmed by the notice appealing for information on a recent unsolved murder pasted right outside the front door.  And the shrine to a local stab victim on the park gates.  And the local Gazette which was mourning the area's ninth stabbing this year. 

In its favor, though - it was a nice (tiny) well renovated flat with a single landlord for the entire building.  It has double glazing, good heating and good plumbing.  And the current tenant says that the local orthodox Jewish community are very good at keeping an eye on things, so she has never felt threatened in the time she has been there.  It is a single bus ride to work, and it is only fifteen minutes on the bus from some very funky bits of London.

*SIGH*

What to do what to do what to do?  Pay more and rent in a nice neighborhood, or maintain our low-spending, student-lifestyle for another few years and keep saving every time we get the chance?