Well the first part of Saturday night was okay - a lovely meal out with Kirsty, her boyfriend Dan, James, Kirsty's Mum and stepdad, plus me and Stewart - good food and lots of laughter. Then we came home to find Ben (son no. 1) doubled up with really bad stomach cramps. One look at his ashen face and I knew he needed to be seen by a doctor. So at midnight last night we went off the Addenbrookes Hospital A & E and believe me Accident and Emergency is not where you want to be on a Saturday night. We were subjected to the fall out from teenage binge drinking in full technicolour glory - I've never seen so much blood in one night. It was enough to put you off your Pinot Noir ...
...by 4am they finally let us go home with painkillers and a diagnosis of suspected gall stones. Ben has now been referred back to our GP who will in turn refer him back to Addenbrookes for an ultra sound scan... all seems a bit back to front to me. Meanwhile he is still very uncomfortable.
Despite serious sleep deprivation there has been cake making this morning (well I did promise you there would be cake). Kirsty came to see us to open presents and we had a strawberry and cream cake to celebrate her birthday....
With pink champagne of course! How else?
I wasn't going to show you the next picture not being very proud of the results but I've had my arm twisted! On Saturday afternoon I went to a lovely informal afternoon at our Embroiderer's Guild where one of our members kindly demonstrated Indian Shisha (mirror) embroidery and brought some amazing examples of her own work for us to see. I sat beside Stephanie and we were generally very rude about each others efforts amid mutterings of "I don't do hand embroidery" from both of us. Well these were my two attempts... come on Stephanie... I've shown you mine now you show me yours! In the words of many of my teachers... "Could do better!"
I'll be back tomorrow with results of the winners of my giveaways... still time to leave a comment tonight and be in with a chance of winning. I'm very impressed by all the name suggestions - so much so I now want to make sock creatures to go with all the names.
I hope Ben gets better really quickly - what a horrible way to have to spend Saturday night.
ReplyDeleteBut that cake looks fabulous!
And I love the idea of needing to make new sock monsters to match all the name suggestions! What great motivation!
Lucy xx
I hope your son gets over the gallstones soon, very painful things. Your little mirror is great! Better than I could do. :)
ReplyDeleteMmmm....beeeautiful cake and there is absolutely nothing wrong (in my untrained eyes) with that stitching!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about Ben, he must have been in agony- if you need gallstone advice then just ask the gallstone queen! I've had the darned things since November (as a result of too much rubbish Spanish food) but as they're too small to operate on have had to keep the pain away by changing my diet. If he does have gallstones, staying off meat and fat in general will really help :)
Hope Ben gets better soon! The cake looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed you made that fab cake after a night in Addenbrookes A&E! I hope Ben's on the mend soon - you're right is does seem daft not to just fill out a form and send him for a scan right away!
ReplyDeleteYour shisha stitching looks perfectly good to me!
Celia
Poor Ben - I hope he's feeling much better very soon. I'm amazed you could produce such a gorgeous cake after so little/no sleep!!
ReplyDeletexxx
I hope Ben soon feels much better. Sounds a bit young for gall stones though? I don't envy you the Saturday night A & E experience.
ReplyDeleteThe cake looks delicious! And the Shisha mirrors look fine!
Oh poor Ben - hope he is feeling much better soon. I know how he feels, having suffered from the dreaded Hilltop Malaria and all.
ReplyDeleteSlight issue with the foodstuff you present as incredibly divine looking strawberry cream cake, either you or your plates are incorrect b/c it looked nothing like foccacia to me!
That cake looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to have a go at Shisha - I did find a book which explained it - but have still never had a bash.
As for Ben - poor boy :-( I once had suspected gallstones - ouch, ouch, ouchity ouch! I did copious amounts of research and the general concensus was that apple juice is the way to go. Get him to drink gallons of it, and also olive oil if he can stomach it. The pectin in the apple juice softens the stones, the olive oil flushes the gall bladder. All I can say is that it worked for me: by the time my scan came round, I had no stones.
Take care. x
Lovely cake i'm glad you all managed to enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteI hope Ben is feeling better soon.
Its not that bad! (Anyway who needs it? You can buy little rings of buttonhole at the Bombay Stores to couch down over a round mirror for cheats and I once taught a group of Indian ladies how to do it!)
ReplyDelete