Getting there ...

Now that I've been freed (fingers crossed) from the tyranny of leaking taps and plumborial visits (a new word, just for me), I thought I'd better address the small matter of Christmas. To that end, I finally tracked down some marzipan in Greenock (no, I didn't go specially: I was having my hair done and there's a hitherto undiscovered Lidl) yesterday and today set about applying same to cake, baked, I seem to recall, in mid-travaux.

Dunoon may have become - when I was looking for it anyway - a marzipan-free zone, it nevertheless provided me with some rather splendid apricot jam to stick icing and cake together; it will be all the more splendid with some panettone now that I've removed so much of the smooth stuff between the bits (you don't want bits under your marzipan; trust me).

And in a further moment of industry - or procrastination, if you're cruel - I was tempted by the exploits of fellow-blipper and fellow-HF member Liz to acquire yet another photo-faffing app. At the moment, I'm struggling to understand the icons therein - every feature has a picture rather than words, and on a phone they're quite hard to see - but this sketch effect seemed to convey the glowing moment of having started on the cake-finishing rather better than the original photo.