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Following on from my cupcake blog I thought I’d show a couple of pictures of our decorations. We hung pictures in our apple tree, my husband made a station sign for our front door, we had Thomas music and a Thomas cake. Our Thomas cake was a homemade marble cake and featured Thomas’ face which was made using icing sugar, cocoa powder, edible glitter and a stencil. I had ordered a printed sugar paper topper for our cake which featured three trains, but just before the cake was to be served we found it totally ruined! We had to peel it off and think fast to turn disaster into a triumph! I love stenciling using icing sugar and the edible glitter I had used for my cupcakes added something extra!

It’s my 30th birthday this week and so I thought a list of my 30 favourite foods would be an interesting exercise. Here are a random list of 30 foods I really love:

1. Chocolate eclairs with patisserie cream (proper French eclairs)
2. Scallops
3. Baked figs
4. Carrot cake
5. Steak au Poivre
6. Potato Dauphinoise
7. Samphire pork pies
8. Parma ham
9. Watercress
10. Parmesan cheese
11. Violet & Rose handmade chocolates
12. Asparagus
13. My Grandpa’s (he’s nearly 90 by the way) braised steak casserole
14. My Mum’s tomato pasta
15. My Mother-in-law’s fish pie
16. St Helen’s Goat’s cream
17. Fruit crumble & custard
18. Roast parsnips
19. Gravlax
20. Boursin cheese
21. Pasta cooked with peas, wine & garlic
22. Nigella Lawson’s Moroccan lamb curry
23. Soft chocolate chip American style cookies
24. Olives
25. Greengages
26. Papaya
27. Halloumi cheese
28. Roquefort
29. Tiffin
30. Chipolatas

While on my short break in Sussex I managed to fit in three visits to the National Trust! Visiting a National Trust property can be expensive, but if you’re a member and visit often it soon becomes a cheap day out. There are so many beautiful properties to visit in Sussex, my family and I visited Nymans, Sheffield Park and Wakehurst Place. This feast of photos shows our day at Nymans, a Gothic Styled mansion which, due to fire, is partly ruined. I love visiting the countryside, seeing beautiful gardens, incredible stately homes and then accompanying it all with tea and cake!

A couple of weekends ago we went to a local Farm Fayre. It was great for our little boy. Lots of tractors, a small steam train, lots of traction engines and classic cars. We also saw a sheepdog guiding ducks and three turkeys, called Tom, Dick and Harry, around an obstacle course.

While we were at the Fayre we all enjoyed tucking into a bag of cinnamon coated donuts!

This weekend was really hot and since we live in a seaside town the obvious idea would be to head to the beach. I’ve been to the family beach hut twice this week and the seafront gets so busy on a hot Saturday that we always drive in the opposite direction to everyone and go out of town. Today we visited a park on the river Thames less than an hour outside London. It was fantastic for a picnic with beautiful trees for shade, huge ships passing by in the distance as they headed up to London and the Tilbury docks, as well as an impressive old fort for some great character. If you live locally and want a great place to have a picnic, try Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury. Here are some photos to enjoy: