NO BEER

Life is especially busy at the moment with birthday's and of course...ahem...writing. There are even a few friends that want to meet up. Given the amount of times I bemoan fate (it doesn't answer back) about how plain a life I lead; how lonely; how no-one remembers me; no-one's left a review of my book/s (there's seven); no-one calls...and then the phone goes...  

So, back to juggling life and writing.  In my world they do appear to be two separate things. I know I can multi-task but the writer in me likes to make everything quite a challenge.  Hence I become my own worst enemy.  

It was the birthday of someone very dear to me, (not cost-wise), and they happen to like beer.  I don't.

One of my life-long searches is to find the alcohol that I will actually enjoy the taste of.  I'm fortunate enough to have friends that let me taste their drinks.  The suspicious writer in me always checks that they've had a sip out of the glass first before I sample.  The 0 - 10 scale of how my taste buds have reacted is told  through the resultant grimace, shudder or occasionally worse.  Hopefully their kindness is in fact exactly that, because otherwise they could only be pampering me in order to laugh at my face pulling.  No...they wouldn't...would they?  Hmm...

Anyway, this particular friend is often trying to persuade me to buy beer and I adamantly declared that I never would.  Occasionally I make such declarations and come to regret them.  This was one of them.  Buying the beer, even making a gift of it would have been a dawdle, cheaper and less time consuming.  I came up with the idea of beer as the birthday theme.
Everything I did would involve beer...okay, you get it.  I get it that you got it etc.

I purchased (stealing wouldn't be right for my reputation and I don't know anyone that would have given them to me) four beer mugs.  I filled each with an inexpensive gift.  One day, when I'm rich and famous, (not infamous), I'll be able to hand out costly stuff but in the meantime everyone who knows me will just have to wait.

Knowing that you can bake cakes in mugs, I decided to do the same.  But it was in trepidation.  What if the glass shattered in the microwave?  My only fall-back was that I still had three more containers.  With three being an odd number, I decided two would be given as gifts and I'd keep one back for friends to use whenever they visited.  Singly.  As it was I didn't have to bake the cake the old fashioned way and then try shaping it into the mug.  It turned out great.  I wrapped the candle in foil. With whipped double cream on top, I had a pint of Guinness look-a-like, voila!

Being creative and receiving immediate success is a wonderful feeling.  The surprise on my friend's face was well worth all the time spent etc.  By the way, it was very tasty too.

I still have the recipe...hint, hint.