Creamy Birthday cakes

Hello All
This weekend was all about birthdays and family events. We had an evening of music and entertainment watching number 3 singing beautifully with her choir. Other performers were also there demonstrating their skills. Emily had her birthday and I managed to pull out the stops with a different, though simple menu for her birthday dinner, baked salmon steaks, french beans and new potatoes with Hollandaise sauce followed by mango pavlova. It was my first attempt at Hollandaise sauce and we are all converted.

It looks like we ran out of capacity toward the end of the meringue, I guess we ate too much Hollandaise!
We sent a parcel through DHL to Zimbabwe the other day, always an interesting experience. Gavin looked on the internet first three weeks ago and it was 147 euros. Gosh! He was quoted 115 euros by the internet yesterday, 108 euros by the first contact on the telephone and then offered a discount by the second sales person on the phone to 75 euros! The driver arrived 3 hours later, and managed to find our house without phoning us. What a delight, compared with our first french experience with DHL some years ago when it took a month for a Christmas parcel from my Mum to arrive from the UK, which had to be encouraged out of the Bordeaux depot after several rather terse telephone calls from both sides of the water. Maybe they wanted to keep the Cadburys selection boxes destined for the children.

11 years ago when we arrived on the farm many of the fields were denuded and lacking in va va voom. This week Gavin was very proud to photograph clover growing in one of our most abused fields, a sure sign that consistent rotation of sheep and no hay making is enough to allow the soil to begin its natural recovery.
Don't forget we will be at the "So British" market in Brantôme on Sunday 21st June.
See you all soon
Helen