“Oh look at that cat!” I said to my sister one day. We were outside in our front garden and I was about seven and she was six years old and as owners of goldfish, we desperately wanted a cat or dog.
Ignoring any superstitions that black cats should never cross our paths we cajoled him towards us.
“Heeere kitty kitty…” we beckoned, our fingers curling over.
Miraculously, he moved towards us with the confidence and sway of a catwalk model. I pulled off a corner of the sandwich I was eating and placed it in my palm. He ate it off my hand. It tickled unexpectedly and for the first time I felt how sandpapery a cat’s tongue was. I pulled off more and he ate more until my sandwich was gone. We played with him for a few hours until my mother called the familiar dinner time call of “Makaaaaan!”
“Mummy, a cat wants to stay for dinner!” we called to my mother. “He’s hungry” we pleaded.
“Don’t be silly” she said and ushered us inside for dinner. Halfway during dinner we heard a plaintive meow coming from the other side of the screen door. His eyes glowed green and he sat there meowing loudly and insistently. Still, he was not allowed inside and as soon as we finished eating, we ran outside and played with him until it was time for bed.
The next day he was back. Curious at this startlingly beautiful and well groomed itinerant, I looked at his collar. “His name is Sabu and there’s a phone number for him” I told my mother and sister. He surely wove his way into our lives -being undeniably social, gracious and beautiful, he walked into our house as if it were his and purred, ate and slept inside. That day, my mother rang the number on Sabu’s collar and there was no answer. She tried again every day at different times -this was before the age of answering machines- and it would always ring out. My sister and I were excited. We finally had a cat! A beautiful long necked pure black cat with glowing green eyes called Sabu. “Maybe the owners have gone away and left him behind!” we said excitedly.
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August 20th, 2012
by Not Quite Nigella
“So Lorraine, how has life been? Busy? ” Five year old Laura says to me earnestly, holding a wine glass full of water with both hands around the bowl to steady it. She looks at me her legs crossed wearing a pearl patterned knitted dress and diamanté bow in her hair. She along with her sisters Olivia and Eloise and their mum Liss are joining me at the Sir Stamford’s kids afternoon tea. When I was offered the chance to try the kid’s afternoon tea, I instantly thought of these three adorable sisters (who are very polite and well behaved too). In fact, rumour has it that they’ve been talking about nothing else but this ever since they found out. The kid’s tea is $32 per child and the traditional adult’s tea is $44 per adult.
Laura in a most appropriate afternoon tea dress
“This place is fancy!!” Eloise says giggling. “Yesss” Olivia says grinning widely looking around, eyes wide like saucers taking it all in. We sit down at our table and the girls are given a wine glass of ice water which they carefully negotiate towards their mouths (no spillage-well done!) and wait for their food. I adjust the gerberas that they’ve handed me, each one a different colour.
“How long till the food comes?”
“How many seconds?”
“Is it 17 seconds?”
The questions come from each girl as they prepare the food. What to a hungry child is eternity is in fact about 10 minutes in wait.
The Kid’s High Tea stand
I remember my childhood by the food that I ate. When I was six years old I visited Singapore where I tried sarsaparilla for the first time. I remember the first time I ate oysters and spat them out and the first time I ate a cream and jam sponge cake and requested it every year afterwards for my birthday. So as this is the girls first high tea I am aware of how exciting it must be. When the two three tier stands arrive, one for adults and one for the children, there is much excitement, much like a spaceship landing on the table.
The favourite layer-forget sandwiches, the sweets are where it is at! From front: Chocolate & Coconut Crackle, Fairy Cupcake with Strawberry & Sprinkles and Banana & Berry Split
Eloise as big sister makes fast work of the chocolate and coconut crackle
Laura loves her cupcake
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July 4th, 2011
by Not Quite Nigella
Happy Monday Dear Readers! Are you looking forward to the Easter break as much as I am? In fact it’s all that I can think about this week. Five uninterrupted sanctioned days of eating chocolate and hot cross buns. Which led me to think of other little things that bring on happiness.
To me, small pieces of happiness can be stolen by:
Putting on a vacation auto responder….and putting it on a day early. I’ve been known to do that once or twice when work gets too hectic and I’m frantically trying to get things done before I go away. Last Friday I put on a vacation responder that said “I will not have any mobile phone or email coverage while away…” and it was the Best. Feeling. Ever.
When TheOatmeal.com puts up a new cartoon (see below). Love the Man Hug!
From The Oatmeal’s “6 Types of Crappy Hugs”
Arriving at a taxi, train station or bus stop and seeing your mode of transport pulling up just in time
Getting several green lights in a row when you’re driving and you’re in a hurry
Getting rid of the change in your bulky wallet
The first night sleeping on clean sheets
Turning an ordinary Easter bun into a bunny shaped bun and…people actually recognising a bunny in it!
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April 18th, 2011
by Not Quite Nigella
This past week has been one of the most frantic of my life. I can’t quite reveal why just yet (although I’m dying to!), but I do have some rather exciting news to share with you soon. But with excitement comes much work and these past few days have passed by in a blur of sleepless nights-one evening involving a torturous one hour of sleep where I watched the projection clock goad me with it’s pulsing red digits and tell me that I was about to have the least sleep ever. I was tired and out of sync yet still I was deliriously happy.
In the midst of all of this activity I had promised to make Christie some cupcakes for her impending baby shower. She was having a Spring themed baby shower so I thought that making bees and ladybirds would be a good idea. I had some floral patterned cupcake liners and some sugar blossoms that I bought from the Adelaide Central Markets. I decided to make her some mango and poppyseed cupcakes as I’ve started to see some delicious mangoes in the stores.
I fashioned the bees much like Nigella’s chocolate bee cake by sticking some flaked almonds in some coloured fondant in place of wings. The ladybirds were sort of ad hoc and I made a vanilla buttercream icing (although a cream cheese icing would do quite nicely too). I rushed about and realised that I had no time to photograph them as I only had a tiny sliver of time between 7:30am and 7:45am one morning in between waking up, packing and catching a plane. Still, despite being a human kerfuffle, could not have been more happily frantic.
In this vein, shamelessly borrowed from the lovely Celia’s fabulously uplifting post from yesterday, this is my list of teeny tiny moments of happiness.
Teeny Tiny Happiness 1: I can pick a seemingly endless supply of jasmine from my neighbours from the bush that creeps out beyond their fence.
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October 12th, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
I had quite a crazed weekend this past one. In fact it was so hectic that I felt that I needed a weekend to get over my weekend. Do you ever have those times when you collapse into bed exhausted at the end of a Sunday night at 9pm? And whilst I love social engagements, all I wanted to do was get into the kitchen and bake these little buns and socialising like a mad woman meant that these were going to be a Monday afternoon project once the weekend was over.
And on the Monday morning I awoke feeling slightly run down or more accurately, run over. My legs ached from wearing heels all weekend – I used to be able to run miles in the things! I also awoke very parched in my throat. I had in fact dreamt of drinking a tall glass of water just before I woke-and that glass of water was delivered, randomly, by Don Draper from Mad Men. Make of that dream what you will. I wondered how on earth people handled other, even more ferociously busy weekends. We hadn’t gone to bed at 3am like I had done so in the past and there wasn’t that much alcohol involved for me. And when the phone rang, I groaned and it was hard for me to answer “Good morning” when all I felt like saying was “Good moaning”.
Good Moaning to you piggy…
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September 14th, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
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