Cake virgin*

It's my birthday on Wednesday, and I decided someone else should make the cake - so Mr B and Katherine rose to the challenge... I gave them the easy all-in-one recipe, which had only the small disadvantage that I've lost the original English version and only had the version in French that I translated for a neighbour. But they struggled through.

This wasn't Katherine's only culinary adventure today; she was out at the teepee this afternoon making soup with Perick, one of our neighbours. Perick supplied lemon thyme, red mint and sage from his garden (he's 9, so that's a pretty impressive haul), and Katherine added mint, chives, basil, parsley and lettuce from ours, along with frozen peas and salt from the kitchen. They were so disappointed not to be able to light the fire and actually heat it, that I brought them into the kitchen and we cooked it up on the hob. With the addition of a tiny bit of a chicken stock cube and (because we couldn't choose between them) a bit of a roasted onion stock cube, it really was tasting rather yummy. Strained and with fresh peas added, it was ready to take on a tasting tour of the neighbours - who all loyally pronounced it delicious. The kids then sat around their fake campfire and ate it from billy cans. It has been christened "Soupe Sauvage" and is highly recommended.

Earlier there was lots of painting and more battling with boxing in of pipes in an effort to get the guest room finished. Tomorrow another long meeting with our electrician (he seems rather grumpy about all this, but if he'd done the billing right in the first place it would all be over now). And of course we will move on to cake education lesson two: icing.

*Mr B thinks he may have made a sponge cake once at school so the term may be a little inaccurate.