I’m definitely a Xmas lover, I love the days before Xmas when you make all the preparations - Xmas tree, Nativity, house decorations and last but not least cakes and cookies. I also like cooking for Xmas Eve and day but cakes are my favourite! I start mid-November baking the Xmas Fruitcake as it tastes better if yoy store it for some weeks. I like the smell of candied fruit and raisins which fills the house and makes me dream of small and cosy Tea Rooms in Devon or Cornwall. Yes! One of my dreams is to have a small Tea Room and bake a few cakes a day.
I’m able to leave all the rest behind when it’s Xmas time. My kids say I get obsessed by Xmas baking which could be true, I must admit.. but they all love it in the end... and have their favourite recipes to be prepared. When you love something, you simply do it, without considering how tired you get and how long it takes!
This is the house I've made with some help from my children for this Christmas. It takes about three days and we need a lot of patience and care in the details. But it's now part of our Christmas tradition.
Every year we like to change it a little bit: this year we've experimented a new material for the house logs, different shutters, a bigger wreath on the facade and we've closed the front door. Don't forget to give a look at the sleigh and the reindeers... They're my favourite! There are the reins too...
Like many girls of my generation, when I was a child, I loved to listen to stories set in a fairy tale world full of happy kings and princesses living in white castles surrounded by huge parks, or built on top of high mountain peaks. If I close my eyes I can still recall their life at court: the king was busy with his ministers; the queen and her daughters, there was always more than one, spent their time brushing their hair, choosing the best dress for the next ball and in some cases singing or doing some embroidery work; the prince was riding a white horse or crossing his future
kingdom on a horse drawn coach. Life was timeless, a stroll in the park or a ball could last for days in my imagination. My mum’s voice sounded kind of remote and I got lost in the book pictures illustrating the ball room or the ride on a coach until a pitch of her voice announced an impeding tragedy. I startled and, holding my breath, I waited for the fairies to appear and magically restore serenity. Those were the years of the first Disney films on Tv and there were no monsters or robots in the stories! I had my happy imaginary hideaway far from the adults’ world... a secret place in my mind.
What colour are your dreams? Do you dream in full colour or in black and white? The answer's not easy, in fact we don’t always remember our dreams. Sometimes they seem to vanish when we open up our eyes, other times we feel like trapped in for hours, we might only remember a single scene, a sensation or a detail. It does happen to me to keep on living my dream for a few hours and of course nightmares are quite difficult to get rid of, they haunt me down and ruin my day. Sweet dreams don’t last long, unfortunately.
I’ve never tried to investigate the deeper meaning of my dreams, maybe I simply don’t want to, but I often try and find out the link they have with my real life. At night my mind is set free and gives shape to the fears and anxiety I have to disguise during the day.. So in the morning I’m rather busy to kind of lock up
all my ‘night memories’ in a drawer and colour my day with positive feelings. After all I’m a dreamer and do believe in happy endings!
Wouldn’t it be better to wake up from dreams which take place in a chocolate world? I’d love it! The memory of the smell of chocolate would be enough to vanish all my night ghosts!
Song: I'm only sleeping
Wouldn't it be nice to wake up in a chocolate world?
An important day for my family: my daughter’s graduation ceremony. We’d all be there with some of her friends and close relatives. I was trying to disguise I was rather tense as I, like all mothers, wanted the best for her. I didn’t mean the best mark, I only wanted her to be fully satisfied: After all I don’t think that the final mark is what really matters, yes of course it does, but it’s more the atmosphere, the empathy, sympathy and interest in your work the professors show that really makes the difference for you. What you need is some kind of encouragement you’re afraid of the future. You know it’ll be tough then, but now it’s time to get some kind of reward for all the work done! I know pretty well what’s it like when nobody seems to care about you,
in fact my graduation ceremony ended with these words: you’re now doctor in .... for what it’s worth. And this is all I remember of that day!
I pretended I didn't care since, in a way, those studies were not what I really liked, but then when I got a job the following year, I must say, I'd have liked to call him, but what for? He wouldn't even have remembered my name...
Luckily her story was different, she was very good and what most matters she was fully satisfied at the end.
I share my passion for baking with my daughters and when it’s time to make a birthday cake for one of us we don’t miss out on the chance to make something special which for us means a three or four tier cake. This doesn’t imply that the rest of the family is happy about it! In fact they’re perfectly aware of the consequences of the three of us working together for a few days and the chance or maybe the certainty that there won’t be anything but cake ingredients in the kitchen until the cake’s ready! We, especially me I must say, kind of forget there’s an outer world and sound like tuned in to a one music station, so, in a way, I do understand their point of view...
First we decide on decoration and then choose the cake, usually a different type of cake for each tier. It’s not easy to find something we all like, I do have my favourite cake which I always propose.. I must admit.... but very often when it’s not my birthday cake I have to give in... and accept their ideas. The atmosphere gets tense from time to time especially when it comes to assembling and decorating the cake!
This cake here's the one for my younger daughter’s 18th birthday and it was only me and her to make it since my older daughter had no time to help. It was a big job but in the end we made it and it was good!
Song: Birthday
It doesn't matter whose birthday it is, let's celebrate together!
If you’re a cake-baking fan I’m sure you’ll also like baking bread. There’s not the same variety of course but there are more types of bread than you expect: if you simply consider the different breads you have in your country you’ll realize how amazing it s that just mixing some flour and some water you can have some breads which look and taste differently. Besides bread dough can be easily given any shape you like and some bread is no doubt a work of art or some type of sculpture.. I’m not a ‘bread’ artist but I love making bread on special occasions and using bread dough for decoration. I love the smell of freshly baked bread in my kitchen, it really makes me feel positive. Among all shapes I’m fond of pleated bread.. don't know the reason why, maybe it's something which goes back to my childhood and my short curly hair....
What colour are your dreams? Do you dream in full colour or in black and white? The answer's not easy, in fact we don’t always remember our dreams. Sometimes they seem to vanish when we open up our eyes, other times we feel like trapped in for hours, we might only remember a single scene, a sensation or a detail. It does happen to me to keep on living my dream for a few hours and of course nightmares are quite difficult to get rid of, they haunt me down and ruin my day. Sweet dreams don’t last long, unfortunately. 
I’ve never tried to investigate the deeper meaning of my dreams, maybe I simply don’t want to, but I often try and find out the link they have with my real life. At night my mind is set free and gives shape to the fears and anxiety I have to disguise during the day.. So in the morning I’m rather busy to kind of lock up 
Luckily her story was different, she was very good and what most matters she was fully satisfied at the end. 
