Belated big birthday bloggage Part II

Birthday bouquet from Bertie and Lauren

And now for my actual birthday... I had a good day despite being at work. Or perhaps partly because I was at work. Weird. 

My day started early in the morning when Luke woke me with a birthday kiss and hug. It's far preferable waking up with someone you love on your birthday, even if that someone then leaves for work and you go back to sleep. 

There was a steady flow of birthday text messages and posts on my Facebook wall. There were also a few emails from work people with birthday greetings. They knew it was my birthday because the home page of the intranet has a spot to highlight staff birthdays each day, which I think is a nice touch. 

And I got birthday cards in the mail! It's such a delight to get a card in the mail these days.   

The other secretary in my group had organised mini cupcakes for morning tea. I had three...following on from the gluten-free berry muffin I had for breakfast. I got the muffin at a cafe in the Centreway Arcade, which I walk past every morning on my way to work. I always look at the tray of sugar-dusted muffins as I go past and I always resist temptation, but not on my birthday. That's for indulging, not resisting. It was delicious too - and still warm from the oven.  Yummmm.

I had lunch with Bertie and Lauren from my old work and when I arrived back at my desk there was a beautiful bunch of flowers from them waiting for me, as well as some yellow tulips from my boss, which was a lovely surprise. I got a bouquet of flowers from some cousins at my birthday lunch the Saturday before too, so my flat has been looking a little like a florist's shop. I think I'll start buying myself flowers once a week. It's such a cheery sight.

Tulips, cymbidium orchid, and my Abbotsford 

Convent big bird feather in between

I arrived home on my birthday to the delicious aroma of roasting lamb (my favourite). Luke had left work early to come home and put the roast in the oven. He'd roasted the vegetables with whole cloves of garlic. I can't eat garlic (dagnammit!), but the flavour had transferred to the vegies, so I got the taste without the cranky belly. 

While the roast was still cooking, Luke told me to look in the fridge. I opened the door and there, nestling on a plate with some purple grapes, were three plump purpley-green figs. FIGS! I almost squealed and I've never been the squealing kind.  

Clapping eyes on those figs was seriously one of the best bits of my birthday because I've been looking for fresh figs since Easter when I ate roasted figs in a tasty salad at the Northcote Social Club. I was looking in vain, because the fig season ended in about March. Missed it by that much! I'd resigned myself to waiting for them to come back in season again. But Luke  found some -  right under his nose at work! - no doubt from somewhere up north where it's warmer. 

We had fresh figs with vanilla yogurt for dessert that night and I roasted the others for dessert last night (after freezing them during the week so they wouldn't spoil. I'd read online that you can freeze them, but I think it ruined them. They were very mooshy). 

Still on the topic of figs, on the Saturday just gone, Luke and I had lunch on Chapel Street and when we were walking back to the car, I stopped to peruse the menu displayed in the window of a newish restaurant called Morris Jones. I zeroed straight in on the fig and walnut bread and exclaimed, "Fig and walnut bread! Yum!". A waiter walking past heard me and commented, "It's great. We make it ourselves." Sadly I was already full from lunch (another hearty and warming Hungarian lamb stew at Borsch, Vodka &Tears). But this coming Saturday, I'm gonna be all over that fig and walnut bread. 

Anyway, that was pretty much my birthday. Lots of simple pleasures. 

These are from the bouquet from my cousins. When they got droopy, 

I chopped off their heads and put them in this bowl. 

They're still going strong now, a week later. 

(I had also planned to organise a get-together with friends in Melbourne, but I didn't get my act together due to indecision about what to do and where to go. I might still do something yet.)