First round of birthday celebration

I was away on my first summer vacation this year rowing in Belgium on my birthday in May, so I am a little bit delayed on gathering various friends for birthday celebration. Anyway Thursday this week I had the "first round" of birthday celebration, spending a lovely evening with my rowing friends :-)

It is giving us the opportunity of meeting up in "civil" wearing more our normal clothing instead of always seeing each other in more or less flattering rowing cloths and without make-up.

On the "menu" for this evening I have baked the following things:

• saffron buns - this recipe is not worth trying out again - so next time I will bake these saffron buns in stead of
• home-made strawberry cake version 2.0 - the cake bottom layer is improved 1000 times compared to strawberry cake version 1.0
• rhubarb crumble

And I got some lovely birthday presents - light weight fast-drying towel for a up-coming rowing vacation, some plastic glass and jug from Rosendahl intended for use out-side in my garden and nice tea tin.

And have a look at the birthday card, which one of my rowing friends had created for me. I am the green octopus in a rowing boat on the Fjord of Vejle with two swans. I really like this card, so I am planning to place in a frame in the near future.

Portrait of me in a rowing boat on the local fjord