Easter is coming…

Today I have baked my simnel cake, after the fruit and spices and sugar has been soaked in lovely strong locally brewed beer for 4 days. The smell was so amazing I wish I could share it with you.

My simnel cake isn’t a traditional one, because the immunotherapy that has so far given me an extra 10 years with my amazing husband also means that he doesn’t tolerate sugar well. So this one only has a layer of marzipan in the middle that’s home made and 3/4 ground almonds to 1/4 sugar, bound together with an egg. Shop marzipan is the other way round and has all sorts of other things in it.

Here it is, and I'm looking forward to Easter Sunday!

The sun has gone in and the wind has got stronger so I've a line full of watching and I'm warm indoors with my diffuser running and nice music playing while I get on to the next stage of what I call ‘Project Me’ because that sounds so much nicer than ‘I am whatever the opposite of a domestic goddess is so I need to get a grip.’

Instead, I deploy my imagination until I'm visiting an imaginary little row of shops, probably in a Victorian covered gallery with gates at either end. There are little shops with beautifully curated window displays and everything in there is perfect for me. Not good enough. Not I might fit it someday or that’ll do for days when I’m at home, because why wouldn’t I care whether I look my best for my amazing husband while caring what total strangers think of me?

I can’t think of a good answer to that either so out of the drawers and wardrobe came everything I own that’s right forspring and summer. Across the bed it spread and got sorted into ‘yes, I like that’, ‘why did I buy it’ and ‘hmmm…’ The ‘why did I buy it’ bag is going to be collected by our local charity agency who give 80% of the proceeds to charity, which is better than most charity shops. I rotate round the good causes and this time I’m planting a tree, because trees are good and better still when they’re not flowering and upsetting my poor husband and son by spraying pollen everywhere.

Then came the interesting bit. I tried on the ‘yes, I like it’ and the ‘hmms’ and took a good hard look at myself in the mirror and learned a lot about myself. I thought I liked romantic floaty clothes, but now I’ve realised that I’m past that age and I don’t want to show the whole world my knickers while I walk along a windy beach. Some of the hmms turned out to be really good, especially my collection of 3/4 length cotton trousers. Please don’t ask me where they all came from because I don’t know, but I do like them so they’ve stayed and we’re friends so we won’t talk about how many still had their price tags on. Not any more though. This year, they're going to be worn!

Still to come are the little shoe shop because I found two lots of summer shoes that I’d bought cheaply at the end of season, put away.… and forgotten about. After that is the little lingerie shop and then everything I own that’s spring and summer worthy will make me say ‘yes’ and look and feel my best when I wear it. I'm planning to do the same over the August bank holiday for the autumn and winter stuff and make lists of everything I've bought in sales.

I never thought I’d say this, but it’s been fun because I’ve had an amazing shopping trip for the cost of some new knickers!

Sorry it's not more dramatic this week, but I hope you like the picture of my simnel cake. Have a good week, and let me know if you make projects for yourself to convince yourself that you want to do something that you know you should. I have a nasty suspicion that most people don’t!