Has it been that long?

I didn’t realise it had been over a month since my last post….sigh…We are still here and life does carry on, of course.

Last week our Game Fanatic reached his sixteenth birthday. It’s kind of weird to think about how close he is to adulthood. By the reckoning of one government department here called Centrelink, he actually is an adult, and is able to claim certain payments himself. It seems very strange when he isn’t able to vote or drink until he is eighteen. For his birthday, I baked him a lemon madeira cake because he has recently taken a liking to lemony things. Game Fanatic doesn’t care much for cake but he likes this one enough that he asked me yesterday if I could make another one. I also baked a Jamie Oliver Bloomin’ brownie recipe that was somewhat less successful. It was fine for a serious lover of dark chocolate. But it was kind of chocolate overkill for us and was only helped by adding some vanilla ice cream. He asked for my rice pilaf with Spanish chorizo, chickpeas, mushrooms and potato as it’s a favorite dish I cook. The rice often is not cooked properly  no matter which method I use but this time I did it in the pressure cooker and timed it so that it came out beautifully. He was quite happy with his gifts but they were on his list so there shouldn’t have been any problem there.  We gave him a console game that he wanted along with a dvd set of an anime series he liked watching a few years ago. All his other presents were money that he is still working out how to spend.