Well, I’m just minding the place for my daughter. You see, she’s expecting and I wanted to give her a little rest,” said the man in the shop. I had never met this man before and yet I felt the warmth of his affection for his daughter. I watch a similar relationship between Tim and Julie every week. She can get her Daddy to do almost anything.

I was in a cake supplies shop at the edge of Cork city, at the top of Clogheen. When chatting to my sister-in-law Mairead, I had bemoaned the job of lugging two boxes of fondant icing from Cork City suppliers to my car.

“What?” said Mairead, “don’t you know about the place up the road in Clogheen?”

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I didn’t know about it even though I pass the junction a couple of times every week. Last Wednesday I did a little detour on my way to collect Diarmuid from UCC. Mairead and I both share a love of cake making and icing. I’m making Julie’s wedding cake and now, with only four weeks to go, I need to get cracking on the icing plans.

When I was making one of the cakes, I was very upset about Philip. He had just had surgery and I burned the cake. Now, a week on, he has finally turned the corner. The colour has come back into his cheeks and the black lines under his eyes are fading. I can now turn my mind back to wedding plans and think creatively. When I am worried, my imagination is curtailed and my mind is too busy to keep my full attention on tasks. That’s why it is foolhardy to worry – as I found out last weekend.

I had a very close shave with repeating the destruction of another cake this week. Tim and I were going to a dinner dance, but we were coming from different directions. I had a brain wave and asked our friends, Sean and Mary, for a lift. The only problem was that they would arrive at the house in a matter of minutes.

“Could you be ready quickly?” Sean asked. The answer was affirmative. Putting down the phone, I appraised the situation. The wedding cake was in the oven. The timer read 14 minutes remaining. I decided to put on the glad rags first and just as I went out the door I’d take the cake out of the oven. A few minutes short would make no difference in the four hours that it took to bake the cake. Well, you can guess what happened next. There was a shout up the stairs: “Mom, Sean and Mary are outside.” I flew down the stairs and through the kitchen and out the door to the waiting car. Sean was impressed at my being ready. Off we went, chatting away.

SAVED BY THE BELL

Maybe 10 minutes later, My phone was ringing with Colm’s name up on the screen.

“Mom, there’s a bell going here, do you want me to do something with a cake?”

You can imagine my relief. Thanks to the keen observation of my son, the last fruit cake was safe. I was telling Julie about how Colm saved the cake.

“Mum, do you not remember how you killed us when you’d come in and smell a cake burning.”

I sure do remember coming in from the yard and they’d all be sitting around and the smell of a burning dish from the oven would meet me as soon as I opened the back door. I could never understand how they could sit through it. My ranting appears to have paid off and all the while I thought my cross words were falling on deaf ears. The worst of all smells is the burning plastic when the water boils off the saucepan cooking the pudding. That’s happened once or twice in most houses.

CAKE CRAFT SUPPLIES

Back to my man in the shop. He told me his name was Michael and his daughter’s name was Diane. He showed me her beautifully crafted cakes, which included a cake with three carol singers for the festive season. His pride in his daughter and admiration for her work was lovely.

We are slow to tell our children how proud we are of them. Of course, all the while I was picking up cake boards, cake colouring, some ribbon, fondant icing and even a few moulds to use in school. I was asking Michael questions he couldn’t answer so he gave me Diane’s number. Michael packed it all up for me and carried my bags out to the boot of the car.

It was a trouble-free experience with no car parking fees and no long walk dragging heavy boxes. It is important to know the services that are in your own local area. It makes good sense to support businesses in our own localities so that they will thrive and prosper. Check out Diane Horgan at www.cakecraftsupplys.com

The dress

That night, Louise, our friend and a young designer, arrived with Julie’s dress. She had brought it from New York from Theia Couture and was glad to be handing it over. Julie put it on and Louise pointed out a few little buttons that have to be put in place. They couldn’t have been finalised until that final fitting.

I stood in the hall watching my beautiful daughter in her exquisite wedding dress. My hope and wish for her is that she will be as calm and relaxed on the morning of the 1 January 2016 as she was in the hall last Wednesday night. In our busy lives, it is difficult to reach that calm.