Tuesday, October 30, 2007

End of an era

This should really have been posted earlier - as it happened last Friday - but I'm on holiday this week between jobs and it's making me even more inclined to procrastination than usual...


About a month ago, when I first gave notice, I made the mistake of telling another cake-maker at work, Leah, that I'd thought of making a fairy-cake for each month I'd been working for the company, but then realised that would be 165 fairy-cakes which might defeat even our workplace's phenomenal appetite for cake... At which point Leah said it was her birthday the day I was leaving so she'd share the work... and a Plan was Hatched.



This slightly strange photo (taken without flash, so blurred - it looked as if the cakes were in a cave with the flash on!) is a first and last one of my former office with five of the eight plates of cake in situ... Maddy, on the left, is taking photos of the other three plates... From the front - poppyseed and apple-pie spice with lemon glace icing and choc sprinkles; coconut with coconut icing; cherry with rose icing and Barbie sprinkles; unadorned choc chip; vanilla with vanilla icing (Leah used a recipe from here, which was absolutely delicious...) By 4pm when my leaving presentation took place, there were a couple of dozen cakes left, and people were swooping in with sandwich-boxes to take some home to their families...


The speechifying and so on went better than I'd feared - nobody dredged up anything too horrendously embarrassing, I didn't burst into tears (just as well I left reading the very sweet comments in the card till the next day) or say something inappropriate. The colleague who did the gift-choosing was pretty inspired too... raiding my Amazon wishlist for this and this; when it gets to me, one of these; and then finding this lovely mini chest of drawers...





I'm still not sure whether he's seen me vanishing into The Pier every week and looking at their pretty things, but this is great. And I realised when I put it up there that it really reminds me of The Luggage, which I've always thought was more like a merchants' chest than the pirates' treasure chest in the Wikipedia illustration... I'm choosing to believe it has the rest of its legs retracted. Cadet is enjoying lounging around on the top of it for the moment, anyway...



Even the Bug got presents - Whittard now do a Catnip tea. Theoretically, you make the tea and give it to the cat to drink once it's cooled. But I couldn't resist just giving her one of the bags and seeing how long it lasted as a cat toy. Quite a long time, as it turns out. Here's a picture no dignified cat could be proud of...



... she is indeed pushing the bag as far up to her nose as possible using both front paws, and giving herself Mickey Mouse whiskers into the bargain... She still hasn't managed to destroy the first one though!

After work went to the pub, where lots of present and a couple of past colleagues came along... I know a few people from work read this, so thanks, guys, for everything...

3 comments:

Spinningfishwife said...

Ohh yum, all these cakes!

I'm impressed with the leaving presents too. It's so nice when someone actually has a *think* about them, no? Shows they've been paying attention.

Daisy said...

Oh wow, I can't even imagine that many cakes...

Anonymous said...

Oh my Gosh! How many cakes?

Onwards and upwards, you are obviously valued as the thoughtful pressies clearly demonstrate.

Have fun with your new work.

Keep knitting.