Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

More kitchen capers this morning -- baking a Lemon Poppy Seed Cake.  I'll put the final glaze on it tomorrow just before the book club meeting.  Naturally, despite my (I thought) careful planning, the hospital called me half an hour before the cake was due to be checked for doneness to let me know that Mr. W was ready to be collected and brought home!  What to do?  I didn't dare leave the cake baking while I was gone, because there was no way I'd be able to get there, discharge the patient, and return home in that amount of time, so I turned off the oven and left the cake in there, hoping it would just finish itself in my absence.  As it turned out, (and it did!) that seems to have been the right decision.

Extra shows the almost finished much-spied-upon terrace across the way.  If you look closely, you will see there are still bags of stones waiting to be piled up around the poor neglected plants in the boxes, and various coils of wire and hose still to be connected, but the outdoor furniture was delivered yesterday, and then promptly covered up in protective wrappers. (Why does outdoor furniture need to be protected from the outdoors?). Can't quite figure out what that weird triangular desk thing is jutting out from one of the planter boxes along the back wall ... it's illuminated with downlights ... a tapas bar? an operating table? a nocturnal potting counter?  You will also note the spectacular deadness of the birch tree in the round planter, as well as some of the bamboo starting to turn up its toes.  The very expensive-looking espaliered apple trees are also looking very wilted and unhappy.  Such a shame.