I have a quite amazing friend, who I haven’t yet managed to fix a blog-name to. She is so much more than her job, so she shouldn’t simply be known that way, and all the other words I can think of to describe her don’t seem to really capture the essence of who she is. She’ll be the perfect wife (if the Journalist ever pulls his finger out and proposes), she’s a grammar school girl, a socialist, an activist, a chef. Superwoman? For the purposes of this post, we’ll call her Birthday girl, though already that isn’t true.

Every year, Birthday Girl invites her many friends to a picnic in the park. She takes the day off work on Friday and spends nearly 24 hours cooking up quiches and biscuits, salads and cake. The Journalist hangs in the background, salivating at the smell; a puppy dog looking for scraps. But Birthday Girl makes him wait like everyone else, smacking his hand with a wooden spoon and sending him out for more chickpeas.
And when we all arrive at the park, hungover – or tired from a morning’s football game – Birthday Girl feeds us with the kinds of food only someone else’s mother would make. Baked with love and seasoned with vintage charm.