Warning: Contains photos of a maternal nature...

The Boy has a new addition to his bedtime routine.  So, after we’ve negotiated:  the depth of his bath;  the length of his bath;  who gets taken out first, him or the Girl;  who gets to choose the bedtime stories;  the number of bedtime stories; what pyjamas he can wear; and finally, how many minutes of post-booktime chat we can have – he now insists on having “whisper time”. 

Whisper Time goes as follows.  I tuck him into bed and try to leave the room. He shouts:  I NEED TO TELL YOU SOME SECRETS.  “Only one”, I respond.  “Two!” he counters.  “None” I reply.  “THREE!” he yells. And so we settle on two.  The “whispers” follow the same pattern every single night.  He leans over to my ear, cups his hand around it, and says:

“Mummy.  Have you ever seen... [pause, while he thinks of something]... a dinosaur crossed with a hippo, crossed with a packet of crisps crossed with a police car?”

I generally admit that I haven’t.

Then onto whisper number two. (These were last night’s secrets, by the way).

“Mummy.  Have you ever seen... A lamp, crossed with a book, crossed with a phone, crossed with a bowl of cereal?”

Nope.

So now I have a whisper for you.

Gentle reader.  Have you ever seen... A plucked chicken crossed with Les Dawson crossed with a 97 year old gremlin?

No?

Now you have.  Introducing the Grubette:

(Ah, ok, she doesn't always look like that.  I could of course have given you the stock newborn photo, a sweet swaddled little thing, but where's the fun in that?)  

She arrived, as planned, last Thursday morning, which I can only imagine was as much a shock to her system as it was to mine.  Going from full-blown pregnant to not-at-all pregnant in the space of several minutes is quite bizarre.  She roared her disapproval, but has been generally (sort of) content since then.  On the rare occasion when the other kids are out of the house, I’ve been feeling something close to contentment myself (helped, of course, by having my mother to stay, and thus laundry is being done, meals are being cooked, and sleep is being slept). 

When the kids are here it’s a whole other kettle of fish. Piranhas, mainly. The Boy ADORES her.  I’m honestly flabbergasted.  He cannot walk past her without giving  her head a rub or a kiss, and tries to feed her whatever it is he’s stuffing in his gob at any one time. The Girl, on the other hand... I think the love is going to have to be cultivated somewhat.  Assuming it’s even there. She has largely blanked her since we got home – which, considering she can’t walk past a baby on the street without cooing “Baby!”, must be quite an effort for her.  When forced to acknowledge her, she makes a face like she’s been sucking lemons, and as soon as the Grubette is brought near me, the Girl starts to climb all over me, screaming to be picked up, wailing for Mommamommamomma.  Last night the Man asked her if she’d like to come kiss Star (their name for her).  She gave him a look that could kill and hissed noooooooo at him, through gritted teeth.  It’s a complete pain in the tits (and believe me, I know ALL ABOUT painful tits) especially as I really can’t do anything about it at the moment.  I have great plans for lots of one-on-one Girl time once I’m able to, you know, sit up unaided, sneeze without feeling like I’ve split myself in two, and maybe someday – someday – wear clothes which don’t make me shriek in agony.  Until then, we’re stuck with the Ice Queen.

But, happily, we’re also stuck with Star, which sort of evens it out.

That’s not all I’ve baked in the past week.  We had the Boy’s fourth birthday on Wednesday (4! How the flip did that happen?), and being a complete sucker for punishment, I decided that notwithstanding having left hospital two days before, we were still going to host his party at home.  He and his friends got a chocolate pirate cake,  I and mine got this spiced apple cake.  (And champagne.  We’ve alot to celebrate at the moment. (Not least being able to drink champagne in the middle of the afternoon.))

Spiced Apple Cake

(I appreciate that it doesn't look like much from the photos - this is what my sister would call one of my "completely shit" photos - but honestly, it's the best  cake I've had in ages. And believe me, I've been loading up on cake of late.) 

Is there anyone alive who hasn’t been watching the Great British Bake-Off?  I watched the final on iplayer while in hospital, the evening of the Grubette’s arrival. Happy days.  For the first time in 5 months I didn’t need to wee, I had a great big cup of tea, a large bar of Almond Chocolate, and the wonder of baking on my screen.  Oh, and a new baby.  Anyway, I mention this because having decided I wanted to make an apple cake this week, the first recipe I found online was by Mary “Ready-For-Canonisation” Berry. I tweaked it a  bit to suit my ingredients, and it was fabulous.  (It was also fabulous for tea yesterday, and again for breakfast today).

You need:  for 8

• 225g Self-raising Flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 225g Caster Sugar (the fine stuff, for my American friends)
• 2 large eggs
• 150g butter (preferably unsalted), melted
• About 4 medium sized tart eating apples (I used Coxes), peeled, cored and finely sliced
• 1 heaped tsp of cinnamon.  (You could also – or alternatively - throw in some nutmeg if you had some, or liked it [neither of which apply to me])
• Couple of tablespoons of chopped or flaked nuts (Mary uses flaked almonds;  I used chopped hazelnuts.  I’d go for the latter.  She also uses ½ teaspoon of almond extract, which, like nutmeg,  I neither have nor like, so I left it out.  Some vanilla extract would probably work well too, but using nothing at all didn’t seem to do any harm)

Preheat the oven to 160c / 140c fan  gas3.  Lightly grease a deep 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin.

Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Make a well in the middle, add the eggs, stir with a fork to break up the eggs, then combine well with the other ingredients. Add the melted butter and stir furiously, before mixing with a whisk (electric is easiest) for a minute or so.  (If using vanilla or almond essence, add it with the melted butter.)

Pour about half the mixture into the tin, then pile the sliced apples on top, so that they’re doming towards the centre of the tin.  Spoon the rest of the mixture on top, and sprinkle with the chopped / flaked nuts.

Bung in the oven for between 1 ¼ and 1 ½ hrs (I’ve now made this twice, and both times 1 ¼ hr was perfect).

Gobble up while warm, while cold, or reheat in the microwave in the unlikely event that it’s been left alone long enough to go a bit stale. 

It’s wondrous. And in no danger of having a soggy bottom.  Unlike some we could mention...