Cake and dogs - a great combination

It's been an almost perfect weekend, after the bank holidays efforts with snow, rain, and biting cold the weather for the last couple of days has been glorious - finally seasonal, and very welcome for anyone not afflicted with hay fever. My weekend was only marred by a startling encounter with an enormous spider in my bed on Saturday night. Not only was it roughly the size of a mouse (okay, it was just a very big spider, not actually mouse sized) but it was just about to get tangled up in my hair which - yuck. After a bit if messing around I got it out of the bed but don't know where it went - so because big spiders freak me out I basically didn't sleep. Happily this was at my mother's house so It's no longer my problem.

Meanwhile back in town, Leicester City did something impressive football wise. I live close enough to the stadium to decide that I'd rather be elsewhere for the night, as I write on Sunday evening the street cleaners haven't got this far yet, so I have ample evidence to suggest that I'd have got even less sleep at home than I did being menaced by a giant spider. Part of me thinks I should have witnessed some of this historic event, but mostly I'm extremely grateful to have spent the day with mum and her dog.

It was also D's birthday so I baked a cake - it's been a while - which turned out well enough to deserve a share. He wanted a fruit cake so I turned to my increasingly battered copy of Dan Lepard's 'Short & Sweet' and found a Cinnamon Honey Fruit Cake which sounded to be just what was required. The recipe can be found Here so I won't write it out again. I used quite a strong heather honey because it's what I had, and was surprised at how strongly the flavour came through. It's good to have a tried and tested fruit cake recipe which cooks in under 3 hours though, and which takes fruity substitutions well (though they all do that I suppose).

Now I have the not so awful task of sorting out which books I've committed to read for other people and dealing with them, and the not so enjoyable job of preparing for work tomorrow. It looks like it's going to be hot again, and another 3 day weekend would have been most welcome. Surely there should be a rule about the first properly sunny Monday, the one when Summer actually seems really just round the corner, and especially on the heels of a cold, cold, spring, where everyone just gets the day off?