Welcome

I was thoroughly out of sorts this morning. A night which contained more awake than asleep, a fractious baby who needed feeding with only a few minutes before we had to leave for school, and then to crown it all, it was pouring.

Ugh.

So we set out through the rain, Jessica on her scooter, me pushing Alice in the pram with the rain cover on. A bus drove past and splashed through a puddle which soaked both of us. Jessica chuckled with glee, I felt like throwing myself under said bus.

But then I got home, to my red front door. To quiet within. To a load fo washing already in the machine and dinner already to go in the slow cooker. Best of all to the advent wreath hung on my red front door. Little things, but comforts for the soul.

And then a dear friend who is popping in for coffee before I go down to school to help set up for the school christmas fayre.

I want my little home to say welcome to her and her little ones as much as it did to me this morning. So while Alice snoozed, I put on radio 4 and baked a quick batch of cheery cherry fairy cakes.

I weighed an egg, then used the same weight each of caster sugar, butter, self raising flour, and glace cherries. I creamed the sugar and butter together then stirred in first the egg, then the flour, then the snipped up cherries. I used a silicone mini cupcake case, and after ten minutes in the oven the house smells of cake and they are ready.

I like plain simple homely little cakes like this when we have small tummies at the table. No sticky icing to get on their clothes, and small enough that they can have two if they would like to.

I hope it says welcome today.