Marital harmony

Toby, Beatrice and I were waiting for Stephen to get up so that we could all have breakfast together. I thought we'd get ahead on Toby's project. I went through the papers and cut out cakes. I drew cake outlines and provided an array of glitter, stars, coloured pencils and tissue paper. I told Toby he could use the big scissors and have sole control of the Pritt stick. When Stephen came down and asked what we were doing, I felt a stirring of respect for the Early Years Curriculum ('Because Dads are important too!!!') I explained that we were coming up with preliminary templates for Toby's ultimate fairy cake design, which we would then recreate in sugar, food colouring and edible sprinkles.

Stephen and I got busy cutting, sticking and colouring. Stephen came up with the idea of edging a red cake in white triangles to look like an open dinosaur mouth; I worked on a more traditional floral concept. I explained that the blueprints needed to be assembled into a scrapbook to chart the progress of Toby's design ideas. We exchanged ideas. Stephen wondered whether one could add food colouring to white sugar without destroying the crystalline structure and was fascinated to learn that powdered colours, although harder to source, are both truer and less damaging to the fondant icing's texture. He contributed the fact that he recently saw some wrapping paper depicting a wide variety of decorated fairy cakes, and  that he would attempt to obtain some in order to provide a cover for Toby's scrapbook. We felt connected in a way that has eluded us for some time.

Toby and Beatrice, meanwhile, wandered off and raided the fridge.