Hangin'

I wish to put on record the fact that I spent this morning baking a cake - actual cooking, with ingredients, and a recipe. A blueberry orange polenta cake, if you're wondering.

I've never made a polenta cake before, so I've no idea whether it's turned out as it was supposed to or not, but I guess we'll find out when I serve it tomorrow. I know it's not generally thought to be the most sensible idea to try out a brand new recipe on innocent civilians, but we have a gluten-free guest for dinner, and most of my usual desserts are on the wheaty side, so I thought I'd step out of my comfort zone; I just hope it won't cause the people eating it to have to step out of theirs. It smells quite nice, anyway.

After all the housewifery, I needed coffee and a walk, and we had errands to run in Stratford - so naturally I wound up at the river. It wasn't the best day for photography, being dark and a bit drizzly; but there was an absolute hoolie blowing, which made it easier than usual to snap the black-headed gulls as they hung in the wind near the theatre. I think this is a first-winter bird, losing its juvenile brown scaly blotches and coming into the chic monochrome adult plumage.