10:32 - Under-layer of fondant successfully applied to all three cakes. Helpdesk Man, who was also stricken with the deathpox, is lying in bed next to a bucket. The snortlepig thought it would be amusing to watch as I dusted the table with icing sugar, and then plant her foot in the middle of it. Oddly enough I still like her; it must be the fever. Am keeping body and soul on nodding terms with scraps of cake and fondant.
11:39 - Realised any skill I once possessed at making icing roses has disappeared, either due to the passage of years or rapidly-progressing nerve damage. Am Googling “how to make icing roses”.
12:02 - In a martyr-like display of maternal solicitude, made bacon and eggs for me and the snortlepig. Snortlepig choked on a piece of bacon rind. Proudly: “I throw up!” Peering, delighted: “I throw up BACON!”
1:36 - Seven roses of somewhat dubious botanical verisimilitude completed. The pig keeps eating the flower paste. Helpdesk Man has staggered out of bed and had a bowl of ice cream, despite my warnings that Dairy is Mucous-Forming.
2:56 - Have piped a large number of royal icing butterflies on greaseproof paper. It calmed me temporarily into a trance-like state, until I sneezed three times and my amygdala got lodged in my sinuses.
6:13 - All cakes fully masked. Had a break for a while giving the pig the milks and watching a bit of Volver, which Helpdesk Man and I started watching last night upon discovering it in several Top Feelgood Movies of All Time lists. Last night the main character’s no-good husband tried to rape her teenage daughter, who killed him with a knife. About the time she started dragging the body to a nearby chest freezer we decided we didn’t Feelgood, and went to bed. Today, while the snortlepig slept and had the milks, the main character engaged a local prostitute to help her dump the body. I also learned the main character’s father had had an affair with another woman, who may or may not have burned him and his wife to death before leaving town, and whose daughter is now dying of cancer. It’s a gay romp, I tell you. It’s also subtitled, so after half an hour of this my eyes started to frizzle and I decided icing the wedding cake would be more Feelgood. Incidentally: never trust things you read on the internet.
8:11 - You know what I’d do if I ever wanted to torture someone real bad? I’d find one of those tiny freezer compartments you get in fridges, all iced up thick around the edges. And I’d hold his hand in it for five minutes until it was good and chilly. And then I’d bang it back and forth, not particularly hard, against the sides. And then I’d do it again. It would be extremely unpleasant. I’ve affixed the roses to the top tier and placed a few butterflies on wires amongst them, but they had a high mortality rate when I peeled them off the waxed paper so I’m making another batch. I asked Helpdesk Man and Flatmate Man to saw my dowelling, but Flatmate Man is as drunk as a large, smallish fish and Helpdesk Man has oosed off to get some Burger Fuel for dinner, me being both too busy and too infested to make the boeuf bourguignon for dinner, which yes, actually was on the meal plan, although admittedly not spelled quite that well.
10:39 - Yay! Apart from putting in the ribbon, the cake is DONE. Including some spare butterflies to give the transport girl in case anything shatters in the car, which is sadly likely - those butterflies are ridiculously fragile. As are the real ones, though - realism, innit. Anyway. I am going to bed.