Cake!

This morning I enjoyed P's savoury scones, which I ate with goats' cheese - delicious, always a treat. Then I wrote emails, chased up prescriptions, picked and prepared some excellent cavallo nero which P cooked as part of our lunch, boxed up stewed rhubarb for the freezer, and picked small quantities of blackcurrants, raspberries and blackberries. This afternoon I decorated the cake we made yesterday, then took it to eat with J and S, the lovely and talented PA who has worked with her for seven or eight years now. It's a gloopy, chocolatey mess, I'm no cake decorator, but it tasted good. I added the lighter coloured ganache, made with white chocolate and just a little dark, very unevenly with a teaspoon and a skewer, and did something approximating to feather icing before adding little gold stars and sugar glitter sprinkles. 

This evening I've had a first little play with Affinity Photo. I downloaded the free trial ten days ago, but it's scarily complex compared to anything I'm used to and I've not found time to start getting to know it. Today I tried editing RAW and JPEG versions of the same photo (of backlit trees and leaves in the wood) into monochrome, then also tried it using my usual and very basic Windows photo software. The version edited from the RAW file showed more detail and texture in the shadows, but I think it may be easier to make comparisons in colour, when I can find a minute to try it with another pair of photos. It was very absorbing - I spend a ridiculously long time on it - and I'll need to do a lot more if I want to evaluate its suitability for the things I want to do.