Birthday Love

 It was my birthday yesterday. My husband and I bought train tickets  - using our new senior rail cards ( a third off standard price tickets) -  and travelled along the coast two hours into Cornwall.

 I feel tiny in the shade of this giant tree - one of the many lining the paved 2 mile path from the station  to Lanhydrock House ( National Trust) - a huge Victorian manor house -  near Bodmin.

First stop - lunch in the restaurant - the rose flavour in this lemonade very vague - but good accompaniment to my smoked salmon tart - even if it did have a soggy bottom....

Copper pans in the wonderfully preserved Victorian kitchens - imagine keeping them clean.

In the dairy -  one of the many small rooms off the main kitchen....all very Downton Abbey...

 

Examples of Victorian desserts - the jam tarts look like Mr Kipling's to me though...

 Hand written recipe for Victorian Peach Ice cream - thank goodness we have freezers now.

Next to this typewriter was a letter written in 1913...from this to an Apple Mac in a hundred years....I am so grateful for each generation's inventiveness....

As it was a misty drizzly afternoon we spent more time in the house than the gardens which are beautiful .... and after double decker Cornish ice cream cones - blackcurrant and lemon curd ( peach wasn't on offer)  we walked back to the station past the giant trees listening to the sound of the River Fowey long the way.

And back home to  this wonderful coconut, non dairy or egg chocolate iced birthday cake made by my sister who comes bearing a bag of beautifully wrapped presents from her and my big sister who is in the air on her way to New Zealand and my brother who is in Holland and nearly on his way to Fiji

 I feel so touched and so loved by all the cards and emails and texts and phone calls from my dear family and dear friends - remembering me.....keeping me connected.....just when I think my world is getting smaller and narrower....I find it full to bursting with love and kindness...