Forty not out

[altariel]

So on Monday night I went out for what was billed as a quiet dinner with some friends who happened to be in town. When I got to the restaurant ALMOST EVERYONE I KNEW was there.

I may have said something a bit sweary at the sight of all these wonderful people, but it was as ever meant in a loving way.

Yes, I am FORTY soon (on Friday). However did you KNOW? And mraltariel somehow persuaded lots of my friends to come and celebrate this arcane and hardly-mentioned fact at Restaurant Alimentum here in the Unreal City. Here are some of the things wot we ate.

• Smoked haddock, fried egg, potato and mustard


• Duck terrine, fig and pear


• Baked cod, herb crust, cockles and parsley


• Sirloin beef and cheek, onion ash, red onion and carrot


• Vacherin, white beer, truffle and onion


• Pineapple and pernod foam and fennel


• Black Forest Gateau: chocolate cherry and vanilla

Also there was a LOT OF WINE, and I may have got slightly tipsy. Or possibly sloshed.

And ALMOST EVERYONE I KNEW was there. And those who couldn't be there and were missed TEXTED ME and SKYPED ME mid-meal, and I was made even more incredibly happy.

And we all talked and laughed and were very happy.

And then - My cake, o my sisters, my cake! It is a cake in MINAS TIRITH shape. It is unbelievably beautiful. See, here are some photographs of an incredibly beautiful cake that is shaped like MINAS TIRITH. LOOK YOU CAN SEE THE WHITE TREE. AND THE HOUSES OF HEALING. It is a CAKE SHAPED LIKE MINAS TIRITH. I haven't cut into it yet. I want to look at it for a bit longer first.

Thank you my friends who came to my big happy party and texted me and skyped me: you are lovely, lovely people and I am a lucky, lucky forty-year-old!

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

That is even more impressive than the wedding cake my friend made for his wedding in the shape of the Athenian Acropolis (when asked why it had the Parthenon but not the Erechtheion, he explained that if you counted the number of columns it was clearly the pre-Peisistratid Parthenon so the Erechtheion hadn't been built yet). Thank you very much for sharing the photos with those who couldn't see it in the, er, cake.

Incidentally, I was clearing some duplicate books out in another attempt to regain some sort of order on my shelves. I know you were reading Ulysses last year - should I presume you already have Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and dump them on Oxfam?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

it was clearly the pre-Peisistratid Parthenon so the Erechtheion hadn't been built yet

:-D

Wish you could have been there to see it in all its cakely glory.

I do already have Dubliners and Portrait, thank you, so do feel free to send them to Oxfam.