He's got the key of the door, never been 21 before...

Last week, our son Jono turned 21, and to celebrate, we went off to the local Chinese restaurant, where they played 'Happy Birthday' extremely loudly - and in Chinese, which was rather bizarre as we are English and live in France!

Needless to say, everyone else in the restaurant - and it is a large resto and was packed with French families enjoying Sunday lunchtime - all turned to look and clap.  Poor lad!  He really is one of life's gentleman, fairly reserved and certainly hates being the centre of attraction (unless playing his guitar on stage, but that's another story). 

Anyway, he enjoyed himself, and we did too, and reflecting upon the last 21 years, I can't say where those years have gone - flown past in a flash - but he is such a wonderful son, a great person and of course, we wish him the very best for the future.

Now, what went on behind the scenes was that the cake, complete with candles and secretly hidden in a bag on the table, was munched on by Charlie the poodle while my back was turned for ONE minute.  I could have cheerfully strangled him!

Fortunately, birthday boy and his Dad had popped out for 20 minutes , and with some speedy use of some butter and sugar and my trusty old Kenwood Chef, I managed to dollop some butter icing on the top to disguise the three large missing chunks!  (Having carefully cut out all traces of dog munch for hygiene reasons).

So I turned this pathetic offering:

into this slightly better, if very amateurish, offering:

OK, it would never win prizes in a beauty contest, but decorating cakes is not my finest point, and I did have only 20 minutes to do the repair.  Jono thought it was hilarious when I told him and didn't care at all - he loves fruit cake, and has been happily tucking in all week apparently - I packed him off with it back to Uni on Monday.

I am now speaking to Charlie the poodle, but I have told him that if he does it again, I will have all his teeth removed.

(only joking Charlie...)