Bugs and Butterflies

It's my smallest girl's Birthday. She's five.

It doesn't seem remotely possible that five years have passed since she decided to arrive in our family. She was nearly two weeks late, and this should really have told us a lot about her. She does things in her own sweet time and own individual style. As she explained when she was two "But Mummy, I like to be slow as a tortoise".

She was born at the end of a heat wave much like this year's, and I'd dotted vases of lilac from the garden around the house to provide soothingness during labour. The garden was just becoming visible in misty early light when she arrived and a lovely May morning saw her into the world. She is a garden girl, never happier than when outside. Every year she wants some kind of creature on her birthday cake, usually a creepy crawly of some kind.

So, here is yet another bug-based cake for her birthday. It's no good trying to suggest other themes, I just have to get more creative each year. I sometimes think she was sent to test my ingenuity, and I wouldn't have it any other way.