Saturday 15th February 2014

Val’s got a new cake-stand. I called last week to collect the Gay Mother’s suede car coat, which belonged to Great Aunt Dangly who died in 1975. Now the Gay Mother is herself 90 in a few days time.

Val had made a cake which he offered. Then he produced a strange metal object, possibly a early radio microphone from the BBC. ‘Just look,’ he said, pulling at the item which at once flowered into a three-tier cake stand. ‘You can have doillies,’ I said. Both our early lives were much taken up with doillies. Later on Anthony Mottram, ‘consultant’ of Prague, thought of another less obvious place where they could cause daintiness. ‘Oh no,’ Val said, ‘it’s self-doillie-ing.’ And so it was. Each ‘plate’ of the stand is fretted like a doillie. So decorative and  attractive.

But Val’s actual cake did not come via the stand which is too good for use perhaps or only for best.

Otherwise Val had Dame Edna’s coffee table book out. We poured over the recipes for Pacific Grill Surprise, which is sausages poked through pineapple rings and Left-Over Quiche, where après party debris, such as half-eaten sausage rolls, prawn sandwiches or contaminated cocktail onions  (‘Be sure to pick out any broken glass or cigarette ends’ Edna purrs helpfully) form the filling for a delicious Quiche.

What a visit to Val!

What is this Strange Object? Could it be an Early Microphone?

Look What it Does! It’s a Self-Doilie-ing Cake Stand

Dame Edna’s Coffee Table Book. Pacific Grill Surprise is Bottom Left: Veggie Mould Just Above It to the Right