Bank Holiday - Birthdays and Rainy Days

I love a long weekend. This Bank Holiday Sunday we travelled up to Richmond to celebrate my brother-in-law's and his twin sister's 40th Birthdays (coincidentally it's on the same day! Ha!) It was also my Father-In-Law's birthday on Monday, so it was a big group celebration. As usual, cake duties fell to me. So I baked a huge batch of my brownies and the Birthday Boy's specially requested favourite carrot cake. 

It was a glorious day - a beacon of sunshine in the midst of a week of solid rain. Much Pimms and white wine and delicious food was consumed. The children ran around together all afternoon, while the grown-ups chatted and laughed until the early hours. Perfect!


We drove back in the rain (again) on Monday. I struggled to stay awake and couldn't keep my hands off the leftover brownies. In spite of the Wintry weather we had a very Summery tea - Melon, Cucumber and Feta Salad. Since the Little Wrens were bored and I was still mildly hungover, we made it together with my almost-8-year-old doing most of the chopping. He felt so grown up! It's a super simple salad - just a whole melon (any will do, ours was Galia, I think), a whole cucumber, a whole pack of feta, a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh mint the juice of a lemon and a little salt all tossed together. So light and fresh and restorative. We served it with some warmed flatbreads and some Milano Salami. Delicious! Like Summertime in a bowl, even if it was like October outside.