Last week it was ‘half term’ for children in Leicester, so we went to Eastbourne for a week. We nearly didn’t go, as it was the funeral of my good friend on the Wednesday. We didn’t want to miss the funeral or the holiday, so we traveled back on Tuesday evening and then traveled back to Eastbourne on Wednesday.
The funeral was beautiful and so so sad. There must have been about two hundred people there, which showed how well she was thought of by everyone.
When we came out of the funeral, it snowed really heavily, it was so pretty and I know she would have loved it. I will remember my friend each time it snows now.
The day after she died, I noticed lots of snowdrops were in flower, as I went for a walk with my husband. So I have decided to plant lots of snowdrops this year in my new woodland patch at my allotment, as a way to remember my friend.
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Eastbourne was lovely, as usual. It was rainy and wet when we arrived and the wind was blowing a gale, but this soon passed and we had a couple of beautiful days where the sun shone.
We stayed in the Travelodge that is just across the road from the sea and yet again we only paid £31 per night for bed and breakfast for a family of four.
You can read about the Travelodge, room and breakfast on a post I wrote here.
We visited Beachy Head and the Birling Gap and looked at the wonderful views. My daughter took the following pictures:
We had a lovely, peaceful holiday.
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While we were there it was my eldest daughter’s birthday. I can’t believe she is 15 years old!
I made her a cake to take with us. She loves ‘One Direction’, so I made her a ‘One Direction’ birthday cake:
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A ‘One Direction’ Cake:
First I made three sponge layers, using the easy sponge cake recipe here, and sandwiched them together using a nice homemade Strawberry Jam.
I then made up some butter icing, with a tiny bit of yellow sugar paste (my daughter’s favourite colour). You can see how to make the buttercream here.
I spread it all over the cake using a warm knife:
Then the fun began. A couple of weeks before, I purchased a ‘One Direction Edible Cake Topper’ from EBay for just under £5.00. It was so easy to use, I just put it in my freezer for a few moments and it peeled off the backing easily and then I gently pressed it onto my cake:
I added a homemade ‘One Direction’ ribbon, using card that I covered in sticky backed plastic and piped the remaining buttercream around the edges:
My daughter loved the cake especially as the cake had her name on. My homemade cake was bigger than the Tesco version you can buy for £8 and I made it ‘dairyfree’ so all my family could enjoy it. I would like to bet that a homemade cake tasted better too.
A Tesco ‘One Direction’ Cake
We couldn’t put candles on the cake, as it would have set off the smoke alarms at the Travelodge, but we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to my daughter and the staff who were working that evening joined in too and also shared the cake with us.
Thank you for reading my blog today.
I will be back again on Friday.
not just greenfingers 