Birthday Cake

Today was Mrs Scharwenka's birthday, unexpectedly being spent in France!

We and our two friends decided to celebrate in this Michelin-recommended restaurant. (Their website is worth looking at!)

The Chef (he is pictured at the right-hand side of the introductory web page) found out about the birthday, and specially baked this delicious and charming cake as a little gift. It even has "Happy Birthday" written into the caramel stripes.

We ate truly excellent food, of food chosen mainly from this menu. If you look carefully, you will detect some curious translations into English: see, for example, under the Confit de Canard!

The dessert, the Mi-cuit coulant chocolat finally did us in! It consisted of an amazing gloopy dark-chocolate goo inside the crust you can see, and was accompanied by this speculoos ice-cream. The picture does not do justice to the excessive size of this concoction.

This photograph shows our celebrating group, before the dessert had rendered us senseless (although I personally seem to be pretty senseless already).

We had driven today from Orléans to Calais, in preparation for the channel crossing and the final stage of our journey home. One of the highlights of our day was a very surprising one: a service area on the autoroute. The Aire de Baie de Somme is cleverly constructed to be a restful place, with a lake with ducks and surrounded by tall grasses, and a viewing tower. as well as all the usual services such as shops, cafeteria and petrol. Here is the birthday girl with our two friends who were so kindly driving us home (see previous days!).

I could not resist trying a photograph of the grasses.

And here is a solitary duck, photographed in honour of our visit.

Our celebration meal was not quite the end of the day's story. The Town Hall (Mairie) of Calais is quite famous for its over-the-top architecture. It has recently been undergoing "renouvellement" and today just happened to be the day of the official reopening. There was a party in full swing around the building, and as we left our restaurant, a fabulous firework display was just starting that lasted for half-an-hour. We were clear that it had been laid on for Mrs Scharwenka's birthday, to make up for the enforced extended stay in France. There were evidently two launching grounds, one of which ws the Town Hall itself, with barrages of rockets and roman candles being set off, cascades of golden rain down the building, great waves of flame belching out. Spectacular, in every sense. This is the scene after some semblance of normality, if not colour, had returned to the Town Hall.

Mrs Scharwenka says that it was a very good birthday!